Tag: home security

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Connected Objects Imaging

Koova2 guards your home or business with canister-like vigilance

The purveyors of connected smart home objects are convinced that smart home robots are the next big thing. For years now, they’ve infiltrated and surveilled — and in some cases, charmed — homeowners into adding their capabilities to the home. Amaryllo International’s Koova 2 is the sequel to the original while updating it with a few key additions.

This new Koova2 doesn’t stray too far from the original’s small, portable form factor — going as far as still claiming it to be the world’s smallest. It packs a 240° viewing range with auto-tracking capabilities augmented with facial recognition and motion sensors for security purposes, along with a wide array of notifications and alerts to keep users in the know about their abode at all times. Now, two-way audio is added to interact with family and friends or scare off would-be burglars, while activity/block zones let user mark areas to receive/not receive alerts for. Koova2 also offers cloud storage for the video it continuously records, offering users 10-second video notifications and three-second video alerts that are all archived for review anytime.

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Smart Home

Put a Gate on your front door for smart lock-level protection

The cornerstone of any truly connected home is the smart lock letting everyone that walks in know the house is indeed on the forefront of technology. And with the front door as prime real estate, many companies over the years have come up with wildly different interpretations of what the best smart lock is. Now, the Gate smart lock is up to bat and currently funding on Indiegogo.

Technically, the Gate isn’t one product, but three in one: A smart lock with key cylinder for physical entry, a keypad for coded entry and a motion-activated camera with 2-way audio and video. Together, the Gate offers users the versatility of other smart locks out there while expanding its features. Like others, users can assign temporary keys to Airbnb visitors, for instance, while its system of registered visitors help automate deliveries so that a one-time use code is sent to delivery personnel for scheduled drop-offs.

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Smart Home Travel

The portable Securmate is a security system for wherever you need it

For those with enough determination, the mechanical locks that are supposed to protect most people usually fail to when it really counts. This is not many households have any kind of home security. One of other biggest reasons why is because traditionally, home security companies target those in permanent living situations.

The Securmate portable home security system changes that trend. The portable security system is comprised of a palm-sized sensor with a motion detector within and a controller. First, the controller — a small Android device running the Securmate app — is plugged into a wall outlet or USB port. Second, the wireless sensor is attached to a door or window with the provided double-sided tape. Finally, the user arms the system using the controllers, creating a Wi-Fi intranet that covers and protects most small- to medium-sized spaces.

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Imaging Robots/Drones

ViewBot focuses on keeping homes safe, doesn’t smile much

The crowdfunding world is one where copycats thrive. Should one decent idea see success, a deluge of imitators quickly try to ride the wave. This is currently the case with remote controlled home surveillance bots: every other week, a brand new one pops up — just without much of the new part.

Add VewNet to the list. It’s an unremarkable looking treaded robot that serves as a set of eyes back at home for users who want to keep track of children while running an errand or want to make sure everything is safe during longer absences. To do so, it has all of the standard fare built-in: a 1080p HD camera for video, night vision capabilities, a microphone, motion detection and the requisite alert and notification system that comes along with it, a self-docking charging station, and the ability to manual control VewNet using a connected smart device. If backers act quickly enough, VewNet can be purchased for $99 and expect it to patrol their homes by November 2016. The VewNet flexible Indiegogo campaign is looking for $10,000 by mid-July 2016.

While VewNet isn’t technically a bad product, as it does contain everything needed to effectively surveil a home. Something like this sorely needs a personality, something Appbot Riley as in spades, making it a far better alternative to VewNet despite being pretty much the same product.

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Connected Objects

Whether indoors or out, the Globio security system has your back

Despite the smart home segment’s myriad of options — and the many standards that come from them — companies still continue to churn out proprietary smart home hubs that don’t play nice with other connected devices. This ultimately adds to the issue of fragmentation, something the team behind the Globio wants to address.

Put simply, the Globio is an all-purpose, modular security system. Its main difference is making a smart home hub out of a user’s smartphone. With it, Globio uses the camera as a motion detector, its microphone as a noise detector, along with most smartphone’s proximity and light sensors. Presented by itself, Globio would be limited, so a set of pill-shaped modules expand the system’s functionality. Some, like the #Pia, is a motion sensor to be installed on doors and windows, while other, like #Shane, monitor temperature, pressure, and humidity.

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Technology

Kphob tracks door locking on the cheap with a turn of the key

It’s a common problem. After leaving the house, it’s often hard to remember if the door was locked and it’s just too time-consuming a lot of the time to return home and check.

patent-claimedKphob is a key fob that records whenever the user locks a door with an attached key. It uses several sensors, including a magnetometer and accelerometer, to track every motion of the key. The device also tracks the time and date of each entry and exit. It features a small display that shows the date and time.

Kphob ships in December. Future pricing is expected to be about $18. Early bird Kickstarter backers can get one first with a pledge starting at about $21. Its makers hope to raise $18,242 by May 5.

Alas, the fob only works only with physical keys, so consumers who have only a remote-controlled lock need not apply. Users must physically rotate the key inside the keyhole for at least one full rotation/revolution. But its makers are working on the algorithm to make it possible for 180-degree rotation detection.

 

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Smart Home

Eco Automation monitors your scene, keeps things green

At some point, the connected revolution lost its way and became a Tower of Babel of many incmopatible companies and standards. Zero Energy’s Eco Automation platform not only address the disparate world of these devices exist in, but takes advantage of the information being obtained to automatically monitor and conserve energy in addition to tailoring the connected home around the user’s lifestyle.

Its Eco Technology Bridge is the centerpiece of the platform, pairing nine radio protocols like Z-Wave, Zigbee, Wi-Fi and an array of others with a universal translation engine to make sure they all understand each other—and leaving room for another should another important spring up in the future. The Eco Automation’s Energy Meter connects directly to electricity panels and provides real-time consumption and production reports, going so far as to pick up differences in an HVAC’s power draw to determine when a filter needs to be a changed and offering up preventative maintenance reports for everything else.

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Smart Home

Sentri’s large touchscreen keeps an eye on your connected home

The explosion of connected devices in the home, while incredible, would be an even better development if they all worked more seamlessly with each other. Since most don’t, it forces IoT fans to put up with separate apps for each device, diluting the experience as a result.

The Sentri is effectively a 10.1 touchscreen that serves as the center of a person’s connected world. It combines security, an impressive array of built-in functionality along and the ability to connect to wide-range of third-party devices to truly bring together what can be a disparate experience.

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Smart Home

Angee’s all-seeing eye protects your home from nefarious ne’er-do-wells

Typical home security systems require a lot of input from users every time they leave and enter the home. And while they might alert authorities to sinister plots on your valuable goods, by the time they arrive it’ll have been too late anyway. A smarter type of security system is needed to serve as the best deterrent possible.

Angee has a good shot at making waves in a segment rife with connected security solutions that pretty much all do the same thing. The portable, lightweight device is outfitted with a 360° camera, allowing Angee to track all motion directly around it, record one hour of HD video, and stream video to an iOS or Android tablet from which it can be shared. Angie’s portability makes it so that users can move it to any room but to truly get the most out of her, security tags mounted at entry points throughout the home can expand Angee’s monitoring range. This offers users more peace of mind through more comprehensive security benefits, at-the-door identification, and pinpointed zone detection in the case of a curious toddler, for example.

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Imaging Smart Home

Back to the Backers: Butterfleye never tires of watching without wires

There’s been an explosion of home security cameras in the past few years, but whether they are attached to some kind of monitoring service or rely on their own apps, they are less convenient to install than they could be. While many of them happily hop on to a Wi-Fi network, they can’t stray too far from an outlet.

Butterfleye combines a wide-angle lens with a big battery to keep it going up to a week without charging. It employs sophisticated sensors that go beyond simple motion detection to include sound detection; it can also differentiate between humans and pets. The company claims it has more improvements in the queue in terms of accurate identification that it plans to deliver via regular firmware updates. Going along with the prevailing model these days, the company offers some limited cloud storage of video the Butterfleye captures with more available for a monthly fee.

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