Plugaway Is An App-Controlled Plug & LED System Aiming To Undercut The Smart Home Competition
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Another contender for smart(en)ing up your home has taken to Kickstarter to raise funds. The Beijing-based startup behind Plugaway has put together Wi-Fi connected plugs and LED lightbulbs which, used in conjunction with its Android or iOS app, can remotely switch your appliances on or off, or dim or kill your lights.
The system can also be used to monitor electricity consumption, schedule and time appliances, and set up device alerts and notifications. Or it will, assuming it hits its Kickstarter goal and transitions from the current prototype stage to commercial product (Plugaway is aiming to ship kit to backers next April). It’s very close to making its funding goal at least, with more than $47,500AUD raised of a $50,000AUD target and still 34 days left on their crowdfunding campaign.
Updating standard electrical household objects, such as your trusty old desk lamp, to turn them into smart app-controlled objects – by augmenting them with tech such as Philips Hue’s psychedelic Wi-Fi bulbs – can be an expensive business. It can also, frankly, be a bit of a faff. In the case of Hue a Wi-Fi bridge is required to plug into your router to link the bulbs to your broadband. And that bridge is pricey (and, in my experience, the connection between app and bridge can be flaky – or, at least, it was on an earlier iteration of the tech).
Plugaway’s aim is to reduce the costs of hooking your old school household appliances into the tap-happy convenience of apps. They’re doing this by offering two pieces of kit: smart plugs, so you can plug any appliance in and remotely switch it on or off; and smart LEDs, so you can remotely control lights.
Their Wi-Fi-enabled smart plugs cost $30 a pop – which means Plugaway is undercutting Belkin’s WeMo plugs. And their LED lightbulbs are also priced cheaper than LIFX’s similar kit (which starts at just under $90 a pop – or will when it goes on general sale in retail stores in January).
Plugaway has also decided it needs to embrace openness to get under the skin of big name competitors in this space – so, for instance, it’s going to let users customise its app:
We have decided to let everyone, including small firms, interior designers, developers, restaurant owners, even hobbyists, build an app in their own style with limitless functionality, share their skins on our website and brand the software with their logotypes. In short – to give it your personality.
Its openness also extends to interoperability with other apps and services, such as IFTTT, or other open smart home devices & systems.
Our open software means two things. Developers are able to integrate other devices into the app and share their add-ins. The other is that Plugaway will also be compatible with other systems, so you don’t even need to use our app unless you absolutely want to! Provided your existing system is open, you may use the Plugaway app’s API to connect with your current home-automation system.
Plugaway’s project is also an interesting study in how to polish the gem of an idea into something with more commercial potential with the help of the Kickstarter community. Its original Kickstarter for the Plugaway smart plug concept, kicked off back in May, but it subsequently decided to cancel the project to rethink the design of the plug (1960s orange wasn’t proving too popular with backers), and to make being an open platform more of a focus.
It also evidently spent some time polishing its Kickstarter pitch, as the before and after videos show. Here’s the earlier one, and below is the new pitch:
Jeff Bezos revealed something that truly would revolutionize ecommerce and online ordering, should it become widely used: automated air delivery drones that could deliver 86 percent of the goods Amazon ships to customers today (packages under 5 pounds), in less than 30 minutes in many cases. That would be a huge change to business as currently conducted by the Amazon giant, and it would mean the end of retail as we know it.
There have been so many permutations of the standard backpack at this point that it’s hard for a bag maker to come up with an original spin that adds anything to the formula. WaterField, a San Francisco-based manufacturer with a reputation for quality, has done an admirable job with their new Staad bag. The Staad is a handsome backpack with a waxed canvas or ballistic body, trademark orange WaterField lining and a large weathered leather flap in black, brown or tan. The company shipped me out both the ‘slim’ 15.5×12″ and ‘stout’ 16×14.25″ models to try out, but most of my impressions will be of the stout version, as that’s the one I wore out and about for a few weeks. The stout model is set up for a 15″ laptop but I used it with a 13″ MacBook Air. The laptop pouch features a single side that’s softly lined, but provides a nice centrally aligned placement for good weight distribution. There’s another pouch stacked right on top of that one that fits a full-size iPad or Air quite nicely. Along with the laptop and its power adapter, it comfortable fit my Nintendo DS, a compact 4/3 Olympus camera and lens an iPad charger and other miscellaneous batteries and cords in the large main compartment. There are only two other pockets in the interior, left and right of a unique central zipper. I used the two pockets to fit a smartphone and cable each, or a phone in one and my iPhone backup battery pack in the other. They could also be good cord keepers. I found myself wishing the back had additional interior storage, but as I’m trying to travel lighter and lighter, it wasn’t a major deal. Something to consider if you like to keep your stuff all compartmentalized though. WaterField offers a bunch of different kinds of gear and cable pouches, so one or two of those might be in order. The pouches span the width between the zipper and the edge of the bag, and are about a hand deep. Nicely wide and not deep enough to make it hard to fish stuff out of the bottom of. The central zipper splits the bag open like a fruit peel about half-way down the front, where it stops just above the flap clasp. I’ve never seen a backpack open quite like this. It’s interesting to get used
With travel ramping up over the holiday season, we thought it wise to bring you a taste of Ostrich.
The first handset from Finnish smartphone startup Jolla is simply called Jolla. It launched last week, after around two years in the making. TechCrunch got hands-on with the device for a few hours at a London press event, where two co-founders, Marc Dillon and Sami Pienimäki, were also on hand to answer some questions.
Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers. What are you thankful for?
It’s Thanksgiving in the States and tomorrow is the biggest shopping day of the year. In fact stores will be open tonight so you can elbow your way into a scrum of bargain hunters and frotteurists. I’m here to tell you it’s a sucker’s game, at least when it comes to consumer electronics and computer hardware.
Modules simply snap together, requiring no advanced hardware hacking on the user’s part, and making for a completely customizable hardware interface. The usefulness for sound/video/photo editors is huge, as you could potentially assign commonly used keyboard commands to specific palette modules via the companion desktop app that ships free with any kit. It’s also handy for gamers, who want a number of commands within easy reach, and perfectly suitable for DJ work, as well as a handy accessory just for making things like using Skype easy, as in the example controller Chu built for his grandmother.
Max Ciociola, CEO and co-founder of musiXmatch, says the company’s new hardware/software offering is designed to compete with “expensive and poor quality hardware that only offers access to limited song catalogues”.
