Unless youâre super rich, youâve probably never heard of Savant. The home automation company brags about catering to âthe one percent of the one percent.â But now that the internet of things is all the rage, Savant is offering a slick smart home system for the everyman.
YouTuber Avboden has a home automation system from 1985, and he recently created this video to show people how it worked. It actually has a pretty great UI, with touchscreen â and it even allows you to give commands from your 1980s ultra-modern, push-button phone.
While I personally prefer an auto-lock that doesn't connect to the Internet and expose my home network to the antics of script kiddies, in today's connected home that's isn't always a viable option. Luckily, August's new Smart Lock hardware lets you have it both ways.
"If you can't say something nice," the saying goes, "don't say anything at all." If I stuck to that, this would be a really short review.
Smart locks, along with intelligent lights, are the standard bearers for today's home automation movement with some of the biggest names in securityâlooking at you Schlage and Kwikset â offering internet-connected locks. But a San Francisco-based upstart may have just beaten these industry titans at their own game.
Yesterday, we posted about the potential future of the Apple TV as your smart home hub. It prompted an analysis from one commenter of what worksâand what doesn'tâin home automation that was so spot-on, we're sharing it here.
Being able to control virtually everything in your home with just a few taps on a mobile device is fantastically convenient, except when you have to flip between a bunch of different apps for each individual device. But Swann's new universal hub wants to help you run the entirety of your connected home from just oneâŚ
Smart home thermostats are becoming quite common and, for the Nest at least, downright popular. But most of these systems only monitor from one directionâthat is, the user remotely checking the home. The new Wi-Fi-equipped Ecobee 3 system, however, works both ways; the device is watching its watchers with remoteâŚ
The Clapper may have been little more than a joke in its day, but it's stuck around for a reason: Simple home automation is the basis of our Jetsons-fueled dream. And Reemoâa combination wristband, receiver, and nothing elseâis pretty damn close to nailing it.
GigaOm has a report on Apple's forthcoming connected home system. According to the site, it might be a hell of a lot simplerâand perhaps disappointingâthan we expected.
Philips has announced the upcoming release of three new products in the Hue lighting ecosystem: a streamlined and dimming white light, a kinetic-powered control panel, and a 3D-printed lamp that will sure to become the centerpiece of any room.
Belkin continues its pursuit of making home automation a simple plug-and-play affair with the introduction of its new Smart LED lightbulbs to its WeMo line. The 60-watt equivalent bulbs produce 800 lumens and cast a warm 3000 Kelvin glow across a roomâso they should satisfy even those who've stocked up on incandescentâŚ
It never fails. The moment you finally get comfortable under your covers is the moment you realize that you haven't turned down the thermostat. Rather than choose between a toe-stubbing trek through darkened halls or sweating through the night, check out Honeywell's new voice-activated thermostat. You stay snuggledâŚ
Yesterday's Xbox One premier was a blazing hailstorm of announcements, each one more tantalizing than the next. And while all the new bells and whistles were exciting in and of themselves, the real endgoal, as FastCo. Design uncovered, probably won't be hitting us for another few years: a totally connected, totallyâŚ
Controlling your home theater system used to be easyâyou simply told your kid to turn the knob and presto, Honeymooners. But today's home theater packed with feature-rich TVs, cable boxes, AV receivers, and streaming boxesâand all demanding their own remotesâthere's no way the little guy can keep up. Instead, replaceâŚ
With home automation being all the rage these days, it was only a matter of time before Siri got her little, occasionally holier-than-thou claws into the action. All it took was YouTube user Elvis Impersonator, a Raspberry Pi, and enough trust in Siri's goodness to believe she won't devolve into a Hal 9000 wannabe.
The Iris home security and energy monitor system from Lowes now does more than just track your water and electricity usage. The company has just rolled out its newest service aimed at America's aging population, Iris Care.
Manual locks and dumb thermostats are old technology in our internet-connected world. With a Wi-Fi connection and an hour of free time, you can put home security and climate controls onlineâand give your home a brain.
We weren't exactly blown away with Belkin's WeMo home automation system, but for just $90 its new Wi-Fi enabled WeMo Baby sounds like an affordable way to keep tabs on your kids. It turns your iOS devices into portable baby monitors that work anywhere on earthâat least anywhere you have a mobile internet connection.
Home automation is stylish, but hard to set up. So the Belkin WeMo system, which simplifies the whole thing with a smartphone app, should be great, right? Wrong. So wrong. Very wrong.
