Honeywell may not have the sort of geek-kudos Nest does, but it’s aiming to change that with a new voice-controlled touchscreen thermostat that hooks into the cloud. The Honeywell WiFi Smart Thermostat with Voice Control is fronted by a finger-friendly color display, but by saying “Hello, thermostat” it can also be controlled by naturally phrased […]
Roll on the smart home: Qualcomm has an eye on being the glue that sticks wireless home automation together, and it’s demonstrating that with some proof-of-concept remote control lightbulbs. Thanks to a tiny new Qualcomm Atheros chipset, the demo light hooks up via WiFi to a simple Android app which allows for remote on/off control, […]
Philips Hue is a fun but expensive way to turn your at-home lighting into an interactive experience to pass your idle hours, but so far it’s been mostly controlled via smartphone. Chances are, you spend a good portion of your day at your computer, and it’s likely easier to control things from there. Enter Hue Menu, a new Mac menu bar app that gives you direct control over your Philips Hue light bulbs.
Philips opened up Hue’s API to third-party developers after recognizing there was a strong appetite already in the community for add-on software and programs. Hue Menu takes advantage of the company’s new efforts to reach out to the community by putting controls for brightness, on/off state of individual lights, color and more right where it’s readily available whenever you use your Mac. You can do things like change color based on Mac’s built-in color picker, add color presets, and even sample colors directly from photos stored on your Mac.
Upcoming features planned by Hue Menu developer Charles Aroutiounian include alarms and timer-based lighting settings, as well as geofencing and more. Like with the IFTTT hacks and other neat tricks built around Hue, this will likely have limited appeal, but it’s still a cool way your Mac can make life a bit more interesting if you’re a Hue/connected home fan.
The fabled Apple television set is still a fable, lo these many years after it first was whispered into the waiting ear of an analyst or blogger, but today Apple has secured a new patent (via AppleInsider) which could renew interest in rumors of Apple’s television plans, since it describes an iPhone-based remote control system for completely setting up a home theatre system tailored to specific types of content, moods and themes.
Apple’s multimedia system/smart home-type remote would be able to recall, store and set things like lighting, channels, music and window shades as well as set stereo components like amplifiers and more to desired settings. It’s essentially a Logitech Harmony universal remote, with settings like “Watch a movie” or “Play a game” very similar to those available on Logitech’s highly customizable home theater control devices, but with a lot more options and features thrown into the mix, and a control scheme that extends to connected home devices, which could conceivably include things like Philips Hue connected lighting system.
The system also has some neat automated components, like suggesting themes and whole home settings based on metadata associated with content being watched. This means that you don’t have to sit down with intent aforehand to watch something and choose the appropriate theme – while you’re browsing or channel surfing, and if you happen to light upon something you seem to like, the system could suggest an appropriate mode to go with it. So if you get sucked into Spartacus, for instance, Apple’s iPhone-based multimedia concierge could offer to change your system over to the idea setting for classical epics with a single tap.
Apple’s patent appears to be designed to work with content sources including broadcast television, since it contains a provision for waiting for a commercial break before it even offers up any kind of scene suggestions at all, so it could definitely be included in any kind of over-the-top service that the Mac maker might have in the hopper. The patent application itself is quite a few years old, which might be reason enough to suspect this idea has been shelved, but at the time of its original filing it also would’ve looked a lot more science fiction than it does given today’s technology.
Alarm clocks rarely do much to get people’s salivary glands fired up, but ivee’s Sleek may just change that. To be fair though, calling the Sleek an alarm clock is about as accurate as calling Microsoft an OS maker — the description technically fits, but it’s a hell of an understatement.
The Sleek may have the right looks to adorn your nightstand, but its big draw is that it’s capable of connecting to the Internet and interpreting your natural voice commands.
The ivee team showed off a pair of Sleek prototypes back at CES (which I’m now kicking myself for missing), but they’ve recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to help bring the thing to market. Here’s the team vision in a nutshell: once you’ve procured a Sleek, you can set it up and ask it to set alarms, tune the FM radio, or play soothing nature sounds as you drift away into darkness. Once it’s connected to your home Wi-Fi network though, it’ll be able to answer basic queries for weather and stock performance (thanks to Wolfram Alpha’s API).
Firing up a web browser and start digging into the Sleek’s backend reveals even more options, and that’s where much of the magic happens — users will be able to hook up certain sorts of smart-home gadgetry into the Sleek service, and can control them by chatting up the Sleek base station. So far the team has managed to get it working with the popular Nest thermostat and Belkin’s smart WeMo power outlets, and there’s a voice-control scheme for Roombas in the works, too.
Oh, and if you do decide to put the Sleek in your bedroom, can you ask it to read you a bedtime story. Sadly, it doesn’t look like backers have any say on what ivee reads (which, knowing the internet, is probably for the best). The big potential downside for home automation nerds is that the Sleek lacks support for some common wireless connectivity schemes like Z-Wave or even Bluetooth, but the team is looking to bypass that hurdle by folding support for existing hub devices that can handle that sort of wireless interfacing.
Sadly, the early backer spots (and the slightly lower price tags that went with them) have all been snapped up, so laying claim to a first-run Sleek will set you back a cool $179. In the event you’re dreaming of bossing your alarm clock around, you’ve got about three weeks left to back the project — the campaign has already blown through its funding goal, and the folks involved expect to get those backer units out the door sometime this October.
Docomo is pushing hard to be able to provide all of the components that customers will need to access and share content in any medium in the home. Through the “Smart Home” concept, all content – videos, music, etc. – can be shared between smartphones and home electronics.
New products that will be the key components for Docomo Smart Home:
dmarket
– Access to rich content such as shopping (dshopping), videos (d video), animation (d anime store), etc.
dtab
– 10.1 inch …
NTT Docomo unveiled its 2013 Spring lineup to a packed house of invited Japanese and technical press at the Prince Park Tower Hotel in Tokyo. They showed off and explained 12 new models that will launch, beginning on January 25th, with a lot of nice improvements over their current line-up of 16 models.
NTT Docomo President and CEO, Kaoru Kato, 7 months into his tenure at the position, gave a confident, nicely-paced, clear and concise presentation of the company’s lineup and vision of …
LG held its press conference this morning at CES 2013 in Las Vegas, and while there wasn’t much unveiled that we haven’t seen before from the Korean company, there were smart home appliance updates that promise to make the connected home a much more easy-to-use experience for the average consumer. LG was clearly pushing smart home tech, and made a point of illustrating what it means by the concept of “smart,” vs. what the term is generally used to imply.
The LG smart appliances shown off at the company’s press event included connected washers and dryers, refrigerators, an oven and the company’s new HOM-BOT successor, a Roomba-type vacuum with more advanced features than the version originally debuted in 2011. All of the devices are also now able to accept natural language input, a big step up in making them more user-accessible.
The new line all include features that make it easy to connect your appliances to your smartphone without having to worry about complicated pairing processes. NFC means you can simply wave your smartphones over your devices to connect them to get them tied to one another. The idea, according to LG North America President and CEO Wayne Park is to make it so that consumers can engage with their smart home in a way that’s natural and automatic, rather than convoluted and anti-intuitive.
The new washer and dryer in the LG smart appliance line offers self-diagnosis capabilities, so it can tell a user via their smartphone when and why it’s experiencing a problem. It can also allow the machine to get better over time via washing cycle downloads – so if LG engineers a better way to wash your undies, theoretically they’ll be able to push it out to your smartphone and your washer whenever you choose to connect. All of this can also take place remotely via any data connection using LG’s smart home apps.
The smart oven also offers self-diagnosis capabilities, as well as downloadable recipes and new cooking modes. The 2013 smart refrigerator can grab recipes, too, as well as provide health information, do self-diagnosis, and work with smart grid tech in order to be able to maximize energy efficiency. It also gives you a look at what is or isn’t in your fridge for shopping trips.
Finally the new HOM-BOT robot vacuum can be remote-controlled via smartphone, and features an onboard camera to allow you to check its cleaning progress remotely from your devices. All of the above appliances are also tied into LG’s Smart TV platform for home control and monitoring, too.
Smart home used to be more of a tech demo, but LG is turning it into a shipping reality. They’ve laid the groundwork in the past, but these new systems (all of which appear to be Android-based, though a rep couldn’t confirm) take things a step further towards wide adoption thanks to easier setup and more intuitive implementation.
Lockitron has just outed a new cellphone-controlled keyless entry system, sporting a raft of new bells and wireless whistles. The WiFi-connected product mounts over your existing deadbolt “in seconds,” according to the company, and lets you or those you trust control your lock from anywhere in the world by SMS or the internet. You can also unlock your door in person without lifting a finger if you have an iPhone 4S or 5, as the Lockitron will sense your approach using Bluetooth 4.0 — a feature that may extend to NFC and Android devices in the future, too. To top it off, the system can notify you when a friend or relative returns home, and it has a knock sensor to let you know if someone’s come by to visit. Lockitron exceeded its self-imposed minimum order limit by 250 percent in less than a day, so if you’d like to pre-order one at the current $149 price and get it for March 2013, hit the source.
Filed under: Cellphones, Household, Mobile
Lockitron launches iPhone-controlled keyless lock that pings you when someone knocks (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Oct 2012 07:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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That was fast: Mobiplug Networks, a startup focusing on smartphone-controlled smart home technology, which was featured only in August as part of TechStars’ most recent class in Boulder, Colorado, has today announced a new CEO and news that it has picked up $2.7 million Series A round of funding, led by Boulder-based VC Foundry Group. Bullet Time Ventures, SK Ventures, Social Leverage, Clarion Direct Investment are among the other strategic investors, the company noted today in a statement. Its new CEO, meanwhile, is Tim Enwall — a serial entrepreneur who was most recently the CEO of Tendril, a company working in the adjacent area of energy consumption metrics.
Prior to this, Mobiplug had received $118,000 in funding as part of the TechStars program, $18,000 in seed funding and an additional $100,000 convertible debt note.
Earlier this month, Foundry Group announced that it had raised a third fund of $225 million for investing in early-stage tech startups based in North America. Some of its past investments include Zynga, Jiraffe, Awe.sm and Modular Robots, among many others.
Mobiplug has created a single box that behaves like a home hub that can automatically link up all WiFi-enabled appliances and electronics in your home — these can include a thermostat, door locks, lights, TVs, garage doors, and home security systems. Through a smartphone app, users can then control these devices from wherever they are. This is not a totally new technology — given that Xfinity, ADT and others also provide similar services. Where it is disruptive is in how it integrates all WiFi-enabled devices — no matter the protocol or make — and doesn’t require users to sign on to expensive contracts for the service.
Linking up a fragmented landscape of WiFi devices in a single system has been one of the gating factors in the growth of smart home technology, says Enwall. “Getting wirelessly-enabled household items like locks, thermostats, lights, outlets and shades made by different manufacturers and based on different protocols to talk to each other is an enormous problem to solve, which is keeping this market from exploding. We’re fixing that.” he said in a statement.
While many users out there are may not be as WiFi connected as they can be, with wireless controls becoming increasingly common, the product will also become increasingly relevant. Solutions like this one are likely to become more common also as more people become conscientious of how to better manage their own electricity usage.
As part of the investment, Foundry Group’s Ryan McIntyre is joining the board of directors for Mobiplug. He had been a mentor for Mobiplug during TechStars, and says that Enwall’s appointment was one reason why he feels Mobiplug means business.
“I was really impressed by the co-founders and their ability to solve the thorny technical and interoperability problems that are currently holding back the home monitoring and control and Internet of Things (IoT) industry from mass adoption,” he said in a statement. “And when Tim Enwall decided to join Mobiplug, we felt confident that the addition of his experience and leadership to this already talented core team could really disrupt the market and lead this growing space.”
In addition to being the CEO of Tendril, Enwall, according to his LinkedIn profile, has been a principal at Comstock Ventures, and has also founded, built up and sold a consultancy to Gartner.
The company will be using the investment to continue business development and to staff up. Areas where Mobiplug are looking to hire include mobile development (iOS and Android), mobile UX, mobile UI, cloud platform, and wireless protocol and embedded Linux engineering.
Release below.
Mobiplug Raises $2.7 Million Series A Financing Round
Led By Foundry Group and Hires Tim Enwall as New CEO
Boulder, CO- September 25, 2012 – Mobiplug Networks Inc., a recent TechStars Boulder 2012 graduate, has secured $2.7 million in Series A funding led by Foundry Group. Additional strategic investors include Bullet Time Ventures, SK Ventures, Social Leverage, Clarion Direct Investment, and others. The company also named seasoned entrepreneur, Tim Enwall, as new Chief Executive Officer. As part of the round, Foundry Group’s Ryan McIntyre will be joining Mobiplug’s Board of Directors.
Fresh out of TechStars Boulder 2012 summer class, Mobiplug offers an affordable all-in-one home monitoring and control solution. Mobiplug makes the smart home a reality for mass market consumers with easy-to-use iPhone and iPad apps, enabling hundreds of off-the-shelf smart household items from retailers such as Amazon, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Best Buy. The Mobiplug applications, associated web services and enabling equipment allow homeowners to achieve comfort, convenience, peace of mind and conservation right from their smartphones, home or away, with a single application experience. These services will also be available to developers who want to create their own immersive home monitoring and control experience.
“As a TechStars mentor and advisor to Mobiplug this past summer, I was really impressed by the co-founders and their ability to solve the thorny technical and interoperability problems that are currently holding back the home monitoring and control and Internet of Things (IoT) industry from mass adoption,” said Foundry Group Managing Partner, Ryan McIntyre. “And when Tim Enwall decided to join Mobiplug, we felt confident that the addition of his experience and leadership to this already talented core team could really disrupt the market and lead this growing space.”
Incoming Mobiplug CEO, Tim Enwall, was a mentor-in-residence at TechStars and brings with him a wealth of entrepreneurial leadership experience. Tim previously founded and was the CEO, COO and then CIO of Tendril, which monitors home energy usage and assists users in managing their energy. He has successfully founded, built, and sold two other technology startups and invested in a dozen more. He has a passion for improving the quality of people’s lives through technology.
“I’m honored to be joining and leading such a strong team at Mobiplug, whose roots in this space span more than a decade of experience. We are solving the foundational barrier to mass scale home monitoring and convenience; something I learned a great deal about while at Tendril. I’m also excited by the team of investors that we have in our corner, and thrilled to be working side by side with Ryan and Foundry Group,” said CEO Tim Enwall. “Thanks to the confidence shown by our investors, we have the capital necessary to grow our team and execute our ambitious goals.”
“Getting wirelessly-enabled household items like locks, thermostats, lights, outlets and shades made by different manufacturers and based on different protocols to talk to each other is an enormous problem to solve, which is keeping this market from exploding. We’re fixing that.” said Enwall. “To do so, we are hiring the best talent available.” Mobiplug is recruiting top talent in mobile development (iOS and Android), mobile UX, mobile UI, cloud platform, and wireless protocol and embedded Linux engineering. The company is located in downtown Boulder, CO, offers competitive salaries, a fun work environment, full benefits and home monitoring and control perks for all employees. For a full listing of Mobiplug jobs available, visit jobs.mobiplug.co
While Mobiplug’s home monitoring and control solution is not yet available for purchase, the company invites anyone to sign-up on their web site to become part of their ‘early adopter’ program, which lets the community ‘test drive’ the application experience, provide feedback, and help shape the final product. To sign-up for free, visit the Mobiplug web site at www.mobiplug.co.
About Mobiplug Networks Inc.
Mobiplug delivers an all-in-one, affordable, simple, and elegant home monitoring and control system to the smartphone generation. The solution connects hundreds of wirelessly-enabled household items that are readily available from retailers such as Amazon, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Best Buy, and intelligently integrates them regardless of different manufacturers or wireless protocols used. Homeowners now have the freedom to mix and match wireless devices in their home to achieve comfort, convenience, peace of mind and conservation right from their smartphones, home or away, with a single application experience.
Mobiplug is a Boulder, CO, based startup, recent TechStars Boulder 2012 graduate, and is venture backed by Foundry Group. For more information on Mobiplug, please visit our web site or follow us on social media:
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
