xRemote – Backerjack

The Ezcontrol hub speaks your smart home’s language

With most dwellings boasting a wide variety of devices and home fixtures that communicate in different ways, outfitting a home with connectivity can be a messy affair. Since the dawn of the IoT movement, smart hubs have sprung up offering to standardize the hassle — some more successfully than others.

One that seems to have the right idea is Ezcontrol. While it isn’t an entirely new idea, its dedication to a simple premise — a smart hub that communicates using Wi-Fi, infrared, and RF waves — makes it a low-cost, straightforward solution. Being that most items in the home communicate with one of those three standards, everything from the connected fridge to the air conditioner to the garage door can all be controlled using a single companion app preloaded with compatibility with over 5,000 devices.

The only finger you’ll lift is a thumb with the xRemote smart home hub

The prevalence of home automation devices has given the Internet of Things a messy start. The more of these products are created, the more a common standard is necessary, and the faster infrared-based devices continue to be phased out.

Since that common standard isn’t here, the xRemote offers users a way to control everything instead. The smart home hub is outfitted with infrared sensors and Bluetooth LE to cover both the old and the new both in the home and a user’s body with the use of an Android app. As a result, preset modes can be designed with the help of the xRemote’s intelligent learning to tailor the home exactly to a user’s liking.

xRemote also boasts abilities like GPS location tracking to warm up or cool down the home in anticipation of a user’s arrival, or the remote control of lights within the home, and long distance control of the home from anywhere in the world through Wi-Fi.

xRemote joins the ranks of products like RoomBox, AnyMote and Puck in offering bridges for the gaps in home technology, but forces the purchase of multiple units to ensure range. A product like NUZii does so much more, but lacks the infrared component, which can be easily added in its case.

The flagship xRemote Gateway will be awarded to backers for $99, and the $100,000 campaign is promising the product in June of this year.