automation

Universal Electronics launches the UEI Comfort family of connected thermostats designed to simplify installation, daily use and ongoing support of climate control in residential, commercial and hospitality applications.  The first product in the UEI Comfort family will be available to OEMs in the second half of this year with a version designed for the hospitality industry to follow later in the year. These thermostats offer advanced capabilities in a compact design with a vibrant large color display that hosts an extremely intuitive graphical interface combined with supportive physical controls for quick access to common features.

Smart home and home automation systems include a wide range of solutions for controlling, monitoring and automating functions in the home. Smart home systems can be grouped into seven primary categories: security and access control systems; energy management and climate control systems; audio-visual and entertainment systems; lighting and window control systems; healthcare and independent living systems; home appliances and service robotics.

Homebuilder Lennar Corporation and Ring, the home security solution provider have announced a partnership in launching communities of connected homes.  The new homes will offer a number of groundbreaking suite of connected home products managed by the Ring app.  The Connected Home by Lennar in partnership with Ring enhances and simplified customer experience that aims to set a new industry standard for how communities are built and enjoyed. The Connected Home by Lennar integrates valued technology features such as security and convenience in a suite of premiere smart devices, reflecting Lennar's relentless efforts to design and build homes that meet the needs of families well into the future.

The connected home with its mixture of devices is a complicated place for the knowhows, but a nightmare for those who don’t have the slightest idea of how to troubleshoot problems when things go wrong.  According to one company this will be a thing of the past.  They making bold promises about fixing many of the issues in the connected home by making it an autonomous environment. Over the last two years Veego, a connected home startup based in Israel have been touting their Veego software to ISPs around the globe in an effort to help them support their connected home customers.  According to Veego, the software they are offering can autonomously resolve connected home devices malfunctions, through the use of their suite of applications supported by an AI backend in the cloud, that is able to identify problems before they are reported.

Microsoft last month announced the general availability of Azure Sphere, an end-to-end connected home solution.  Azure sphere, according to Microsoft is an integrated security solution for IoT (Internet of Things) devices and equipment.  A solution that will form the based for the development and deployment of secure connected devices. The idea is, if connected home devices and services are developed on a secure base and supported by an active platform then the increasing risks to connected home and its occupants will be less.

According to Cisco, there will be 29.3 billion networked devices on the internet by 2023 of this amount Machine-To-Machine (M2M) connections will be 14.7 billion, that’s 50 percent share.  Families having their baby monitors hacked is a constant news item.  We need solutions that can make the connected home a more secure environment. Then after hearing about Microsoft’s recent general availability of Azure Sphere and knowing that we already have TR-069; I am thinking why not use the best of both to fix this problem.

Zebronics has launched new security camera for the Indian home automation market.  The device offers pan, tilt and digital zoom (PTZ) capabilities, with three connectivity options LAN, Wi-Fi and Hotspot.  According to Zebronics, the camera can be wall-mounted or used on a table-top and has a microSD card slot that supports up to 512GB. It (ZEB-HA2NW10M-PT-HMBW) has motion sensor to trigger alerts should it sense movement. Using your phone, you can access the camera to further investigate.

The connected home and its services don’t sometimes hold the headline in regular newspapers for the good things it is doing for many individuals and homes.  Some stories you will read will let you believe that is a fad and will remain relevant but only for geeks who understand it.  However, after reading the Cisco annual internet report you will get a totally different picture on how this technology and its use is growing in popularity for all.  Cisco is one of the biggest network service providers in the world and most of the internet’s traffic goes through their devices at some point to reach its destination.

Microsoft released a blog note on how Cortana services will change in the next service update.   From what I understand the updates are more geared toward supporting the Office 365 platform as it relates to personal productivity.  A number of experiences that we have become used to from Cortana are going.  The official word is some connected home skills will no longer be available in this updated Cortana experience.

Somfy has launch a new range of connected shades and curtains solutions based on Zigbee 3.0.  This new range includes the TaHoma gateway hub with embedded Radio Technology Somfy (RTS) motors and Zigbee 3.0 radio connectivity, a corresponding local controller, an automation app and a full set of motors for shades and curtains.