August's View doorbell hasn't had a stellar launch. The smart home company is "pausing" shipments of the View after reports of "performance challenges" in certain households. While it didn't say what those issues were, The Ambient noted that the Vi...
At $35, it’s not too far fetched to imagine decking out your entire home with WeMo’s Mini Smart Plug. Why? Well, it allows you to remotely control anything that’s connected through it. Each little device will connect to your home network through WiFi, and through the app you’ll be able to turn it on or off remotely. You can make it look like someone’s home, even when no one’s there. You can schedule lights, sync them to sunrise and sunset, or even randomize them… because why not. The nice thing about the WeMo Mini in articular is that it doesn’t require a hub, instead connecting directly to your WiFi.
I watch a lot of those tiny house shows with my wife that seem to come on every day on HGTV and other home improvement networks. The idea of having less junk and working less to pay for things you don’t need is very appealing to me. The catch with a very small space is that it can be hard to get the living space you need out of it.
MIT Media Lab has teamed up with product designer Yves Behar and research scientist Hasier Larrea from MIT to create a slick modular, robotic furniture system called Ori.
The Ori name comes from the word Origami and the crux of the design is a modular furniture system that can be moved using an app on your smartphone or a control on the wall. It can move around the room, and deploy a bed at night or a desk when you need to study or work.
Ori also looks very cool, but it seems like it would be a very expensive bit of furniture. I hear robotic furniture, MIT, and Swiss design and automatically assume we are talking a significant expense. The tiny house movement is all about reducing costs, so this seems a bit counterintuitive to that approach. Granted Ori isn’t available now and we have no indication of how much it might actually cost.
For better or for worse, our appliances are getting smarter. But like their simpler ancestors, they usually come with their own remote controls, be they physical controllers or apps. French startup Sevenhugs thinks it has the answer with SmartRemote, a touchscreen universal remote control for connected devices.
Ideally, SmartRemote works like this: you point it at your TV, and it turns into a TV remote, but when you point it at your LED bulb, it automatically switches to the color and brightness controls. And so on. Right now the remote works only with Philips Hue lights, Sonos speakers and the Nest Learning Thermostat, but Sevenhugs says it has an open SDK that will hopefully encourage companies and developers to make their devices compatible with SmartRemote.
In truth, the remote itself isn’t that smart. It works in conjunction with a mobile app and three location modules that plug into bulb sockets. For best results, the three modules should all be plugged in the same room. The app lets you pair the remote with any device that has Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connectivity, while the modules serve as the remote’s compass. In short, the remote detects not what you’re pointing at, but where you’re pointing to. But you can use that limitation to your advantage. For instance, you can train the remote to show the thermostat controls when you point at your fireplace, or toggle the outdoor lights when you point at your window.
Sevenhugs plans on raising funds for SmartRemote on Kickstarter on February and start shipping on September. It seems like a magical device, but I’d still rather have it as an app on my phone or perhaps on a smartwatch. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sensors on smartphones would be enough to let it determine its location and orientation on its own.
You know the old joke about how if someone ever invented a device that does everything at the push of a button, people would still ask for a device that would push the other device’s button for them? Well here it is.
Currently in development by a Korean company called Naran, Microbot Push is a stick-on robotic finger made to remotely press buttons and switches.
You can control it with an app over Bluetooth, but that still involves pressing a (virtual) button.
Fortunately Naran is also working on an ARM-powered server called Prota to automate Microbots. With Prota, you’ll be able to set what Naran calls “stories”, if-this-then-that statements that will trigger its army of robots.
Red Ferret says Naran will also release Microbot Twist (for knobs), Microbot Sense (some kind of sensor) and Microbot Scan (a fingerprint scanner). Naran plans to setup a crowdfunding campaign for its products, but right now they’re still in the prototype phase. So there’s still time to create the do-it-all machine.
Like 3D printers, electronic door locks and PCs on sticks, it seeems like everyone’s making personalassistantdevices these days. One of the latest electronic PAs is Mycroft, and it stands out from the rest by having open source technology.
Like its competitors, Mycroft is operated using voice commands. It can play music, search online for answers to your questions, control smart appliances and much more. Mycroft’s open source software and hardware should make it a lot easier for developers and engineers to add to or enhance its functions. The fact that it’s powered by a Raspberry Pi 2 and an Arduino microcontroller should greatly help its versatility as well.
Pledge at least $99 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a base Mycroft unit, or at least $129 to get the expandable version. The latter allows for easy access to the Raspberry Pi 2’s ports for mods and hacks.
Knocking on your living room table to switch on the TV. This is not science fiction. Knocki is a small wireless device that transforms any surface into a remote control. Knocki is the...
Last year, we checked out a light switch that let you toggle lights just by waving your hand. Knocki lets you do that and more but by knocking or tapping on a surface.
Unlike the Clapper, Knocki doesn’t use microphones to detect knocks. Instead, it senses the vibration on the surface that it’s mounted on. That reduces false positives as well as multiple activations in case you have multiple Knocki units near each other.
So what can you do with Knocki? For starters, it lets you trigger and talk with your smartphone. For instance, it can text you if someone’s knocking at the door or left mail at your mailbox. Or you can call someone with just a knock.
But you’ll get the most out of Knocki by integrating it with smart appliances and automation systems such as IFTTT, Nest and even Apple’s new home automation platform Home Kit. Then you’ll be able to control and monitor your home with just a few knocks.
Pre-order a Knocki for $59 (USD). You can program different functions into a single unit, so you don’t have to go all in with a house full of Knockis like the family in the video.
These days, there are projectors small enough that you can easily mount them wherever you want. But the Beam smart projector provides an even more convenient option, because it screws into and gets power from E26 and E27 light sockets.
The projector does have a small flat side so you can leave it on a flat surface, but it won’t be as stable as when it’s screwed into a light socket. If you do choose to mount it in a socket, you can use it to project a virtual gaming surface onto your tabletop.
Aside from its unique mounting solution, Beam’s Android-based OS lets you automate the device with if-then macros. For example, you can have it turn on at certain times, open a specific program based on who’s nearby (or at least whose mobile device is nearby) and more.
While it doesn’t have HDMI or USB inputs – which you won’t be able to reach when it’s screwed in anyway – the projector has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. It will also have iOS and Android remote control apps.
Sadly, Beam falls flat when it comes to the most important aspect. Its LEDs produce a respectable (for a pico projector) 100 lumens, but it can only project an 854×480 display and only has couple of tiny 2W speakers built in. That may change between now and when it’s actually released, but until then don’t expect this to be the center of your entertainment setup.
Pledge at least $369 (USD) on Kickstarter to receive a Beam smart projector as a reward.
Fantem today launched a crowdfunding campaign for Oomi, the first smart home system that offers users simplicity of set-up and use to deliver an intuitive, and easy to expand, home management...
August's View doorbell hasn't had a stellar launch. The smart home company is "pausing" shipments of the View after reports of "performance challenges" in certain households. While it didn't say what those issues were, The Ambient noted that the Vi...
