Category: Smart Home

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Smart Home

airBell connected doorbell alerts you to shenanigans via Wi-Fi or phone call

In this day and age of drone deliveries and comet landings, physically knocking on a door and waiting for someone to open it can seem a little dated and, frankly, boring. Even missing deliveries seems like something that really shouldn’t happen anymore, but for most people, it can be a commonplace occurrence.

With airBell, you can rest assured that you’ll always know exactly who’s at your door at any time and be able to promptly react. The connected doorbell sports a 3.5″ touchscreen, a motion sensor to detect guests, and can call you, send you an SMS or a push notification, or even facilitate a video chat using the onboard camera with your Wi-Fi or GSM connected smartphone or tablet. This means that you won’t have to rush anymore to open the door or miss anymore packages as you could direct the deliveryman accordingly. An alarm sounds if the airBell senses a suspicious presence and a one-touch SOS gives you the power to call proper authorities based on unexpected emergencies too. The campaign’s $25,000 goal aims to get the $159 airBell into backer’s homes by December 2014.

Although the airBell serves up a multitude of functionality and can be occasionally useful with the wayward package every now and then, its biggest problem is the fact that smartphones exist. Why buy a completely separate device that can basically do what a smartphone already does? Just because something can be automated doesn’t mean it deserves to be, but at least the product will serve as a great a conversation starter for all those home automation fetishists out there.

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Smart Home

Tank Utility lets your smartphone keep an eye on your propane tank, makes Hank Hill proud

The use of propane to heat a home can sometimes be a pain. Supply levels must be kept up with or else homeowners will find themselves without shivering. This can also lead to frozen pipes and flood damage, both which can be extremely costly to any homeowner. The Tank Utility helps ward off these problems by being your personal propane assistant. The remote smart meter monitors your propane tank level by connecting to your Wi-Fi network, relaying that information back to your smartphone for review. You’ll receive personalized alerts when you’re low and schedule deliveries right on your phone. In the meantime, it’ll be able access diagnostic information about consumption trends, efficiency, and other problems like disconnected Wi-Fi or low battery, all while keeping an eye out for leaks and other strange usage. With the device requiring no tools to install and able to work in temperatures as low as -20°, it is an incredibly useful tool to effortlessly keep on top of things around the home. Combine this with other home automation solutions like the ActuSwitch and the Ninja Sphere to really keep things under control. Expected in May 2015, the Tank Utility is priced at $200 and is looking for $20,000 in funding.

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Smart Home

ShutterEaze makes sure your smart home isn’t blindsided

Home owners over the past few years have enjoyed the explosion of support for all things home automation. Everything from your toaster to your thermostat to your doors can be controlled with a smartphone, leading to increased convenience. Even as so many of these parts of home are being automated, there are as many that haven’t been, like shutters. Automating them is a time-consuming, complex process. ShutterEaze is looking to make it extremely easy.

The ShutterEaze system works with all types of shutter louves and is easily installed using nothing but clip-on parts. When it’s on, the system can be controlled with a remote control or an iOS/Android device. The ability to control shutters in groups, set a sunrise and sunset mode, and set your own schedules are the added benefits of using a smartphone or tablet, relieving homeowners of the daily burden of having to open or close their shutters. No HomeKit integration has been announced, but the company is currently working on ZigBee integration to expand the ShutterEaze system’s usefulness. The product is currently priced at $159 with an estimated delivery date of May 2015. The campaign is looking for $40,000 to make its way into homes everywhere.

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Home Smart Home

Moderno Eco-Home takes an ecological spin

With all the devices out there to make your home smarter, it’s about time that these special tools begin to pull more weight. If not, the alternative is a device full of independent devices that all need to be switched on in order to function.

The Moderno HCS1 Home Control System is a simple interface designed to combine three key aspects of the smart home: climate control, irrigation, and home security. With a single touch screen panel that can be mounted inside and access through any smartphone or tablet, the HCS1 is easy to use, adjust, and set up.

These three systems also work in cooperation with each other: for example, the HCS1 uses its security cameras to know when nobody is home and turn off the climate control system to cut down on energy. Moderno Technologies is raising $150,000 to develop, test, and manufacture the product. No reward tiers offer the actual product at this time.

One has to applaud the combination of multiple smart home functions into one device, but the lack of a physical product reaching backers and the lack of further expansion options make this kind of product one that’s better to wait until the market matures.

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Smart Home

ActuSwitch renders you obsolete, turns on lights by pushing switches

Home automation is all the rage now, but most products require all kinds of installation methods to control the small parts of your home, like light switches. Sometimes the hassle required to do so outweighs the benefits of having the capabilities in the first place. ActuSwitch’s more motorized take on the issue ensures that anyone will be able to enjoy automatic, wireless control of anything controlled with a light switch.

ActuSwitch works as an easily installed, motorized cover for a wall switch that can be remotely controlled. Inside, a mechanism moves up and down to trigger the switch, moving back to a central position so it can still be used activated regularly. Its battery-powered designs installs over existing switches without any prior wiring knowledge required and lasts for one year, though only works with flat-styled switches for now which limits those who can enjoy it. Users can set up scheduling features to automate lights when not at home and set up profiles to provide different switches their own timing with iOS and Android apps. For now, those who are looking for a multi-switch design are out of luck as the company doesn’t have one available, but if the product still piques interest it can be had for $37 by February 2015. The campaign is looking for $60,000 to achieve their funding goal.

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Smart Home

Ambi is another connected add-on that tells air conditioners to cool it

For air conditioner lovers, the scene is all too familiar. The house is the perfect temperature when it’s time to go to sleep, and then in the middle of the night, it feels like a new ice age has arrived. Ambi Climate is a smart brain for any model of air conditioner with an infra-red remote that senses outdoor and indoor conditions to adjust the air conditioner to the perfect temperature. Monitoring humidity, time of day, weather, motion, and indoor temperature, Ambi Climate adjusts the air conditioning to the perfect setting before anyone can even consider adjusting it.

Like any good smart air conditioner, Ambi Climate can also be adjusted manually using its app, even while outside of the home. Ambi Climate also pays attention to the situations in which manual controls are used to learn more about the user and better predict the temperatures he or she wants their home to have. By adjusting automatically, Ambi Climate not only find the perfect A/C setting, but also saves on energy bills. Ambi Labs has set its goal at $25,000. Buyers will feel the perfect indoor climate for $99 in time for the 2015 summer.

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Smart Home

Smoke Audio smoke alarm sends alerts around home with Bluetooth

It’s a given that everyone reading this has a combination carbon monoxide/smoke alarm in their home. Likewise, it’s also a given that most of the time it does nothing at all. Does its potentially life-saving capability give it a pass? That’s the question the team over at Smoke Audio asked themselves, and, as a result, have set out to give the humble smoke alarm a makeover.

Smoke Audio’s take on the nondescript alarm combines it with Bluetooth audio capabilities so that user can stream audio from smartphones, tablets, and PCs. The product can work with existing wiring or already installed alarms, allowing it to be easily placed in any home. To all those who think a music-playing carbon monoxide/smoke alarm jumps out as irresponsible, the team made sure that all music functionality is switched off the moment anything strange is detected, ensuring users will hear the alarm when they need to. All those interested in the product can grab one for $90, 30% off the retail price. Smoke Audio is looking for $50,000 by November 2014.

Smoke Audio’s basic premise is an intelligent, if simplistic, one. By just adding Bluetooth audio capabilities, something that is required in all our homes becomes that much more engaging. The fact that it’s also attracts as you’ll never have to change out the battery. Smoke Audio also bills their device as a low cost alternative to multi-room wireless systems. While installation is probably much easier than those systems, its cost might still prohibitive for many. With each unit flaunting a retail a price of about $130 each, even having to purchase two for a product that isn’t portable by nature will be a hard sell. Its one talent may end up being a one trick pony, too, something Smoke Audio is sure to address with future iterations. We’ll see if their campaign will need their own alarm come mid-November.

 

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Cell Phone Accessories Smart Home

Rico reuses your older smartphone into a smart home station

Keeping current with the latest smartphones is a battle with many casualties, namely all the old phones that just wind up in a closet or a drawer collecting dust. What if there was still a way to put their processors to use?

Rico is a cute little smart home sensor package that can function basically on its own to do motion detection, smoke monitoring, and controlling devices connected to smart outlets. What makes Rico unique however is that it also serves as a housing for smartphones, that combines the strengths of smartphone hardware with home automation sensors. As a result, this opens up the possibility of having an HD security camera with microphone and speaker connected via 3G and Wifi.

In doing so, Rico pushes two important realities of the modern age: finding a use for devices that are too often simply discarded or forgotten and helping consumers more easily enter the era of the smart home. Rico developers MindHelix, Inc. are trying to raise $100,000 to finish design, testing, and production phases on the project. Interested supporters can grab a Rico for $99, with an estimated delivery in November 2015.

While the individual feature set of the Rico may not be anything groundbreaking, the method that it goes about accomplishing home automation is very clever. It would be nice to see the addition of a smartphone provide more than just audio/video functions and network access, but ideally this will help some consumers save money on home automation.

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Smart Home

Smart control kit lifts the difficulty in controlling window blinds

One of the biggest hurdles that home automation faces is the cost and complexity of installing devices for every small or mundane aspect of a house.

Tilt My Blinds thinks that smart blinds are a great addition to any home, and wants to make the process simple for anyone. Working with virtually any kind of existing blinds, Tilt My Blinds is a simple device that takes less than 15 minutes to install on each set of blinds and allows for scheduled opening and closing of the blinds as well as control via Bluetooth devices or wireless switches. The blinds are powered by a battery which can be charged using any USB outlet or with an optional solar panel to save even more time and energy. It’s going to take $50,000 to make a properly-funded endeavor. A Tilt My Blinds retrofit kit will cost backers $75 and arrive in February 2015.

For those automating their home piece by piece, Tilt My Blinds is a great way to add some futurism into even the most quaint of dwellings. The solar panel is  great for taking even more effort away from managing the blinds, and the TV plug add-on to reduce viewing glare demonstrates the kind of foresight that should make this product successful.

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Smart Home

Jul Bujh clamps on to boilers to make them smarter and more efficient

In most of the developed world, natural gas heaters seamlessly provide heated water to a household without wasting an unnecessary amount of energy doing so. In the undeveloped world, that isn’t the case: the price for natural gas heating goes up because the boilers in use are outdated, knowing only to keep water heated but not necessarily when it should do so. This means that every night when people are sleeping and not using any, the boiler will still be chugging away and heating up water. This raises prices, wastes fossil fuels, and contaminates the air.

Jul Bujh is intended to solve the problem of wasteful legacy boilers by being an easy to install, snap-on device that turns a boiler’s control itself, rather than forcing people to wake up and head out into the freezing weather to do so themselves. With the device being Bluetooth Low Energy enabled, customizable, repeatable schedules can be set with an iOS or Android app utilizing multiple temperature options; a remote controlled option is in the works if you don’t have a smartphone. Once you do, you won’t have to think about it all winter: just four AA batteries can power the device all season. At $60 a pop, the potential for money saved trumps the investment necessary. The more people know this, the easier it will be for the company to raise $35,000 within the month.

The smart home is becoming increasingly more adept at conquering the issues of heating. Products like Hot-Tubes offer solutions alongside the heavyweights like Nest. Unfortunately, these solutions only apply to more developed nations where the issue of waste is present but much less intrusive financially, making it harder to feel its effects, and thus take action. Outside of the Jul Bujh, there isn’t really anything addressing the problem of legacy water heaters — let’s see if it makes the difference this winter.