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Apparel Kids/Babies Sensors/IoT

Hoko smart comfort monitor keeps your toddler temperate

It would be helpful if parents could be quickly informed if their small child is too hot or cold, especially when engaged in outdoor activities for an extended period of time.

Hoko is a smart, portable comfort monitor that should enable exactly that. One side of Hoko is a small, circular device containing a microprocessor, along with temperature and humidity sensors, that gets placed inside a child’s clothing. That side of the product is attached to a piece of soft fabric with a cute doll on the other side that serves as Hoko’s interface.

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Smart Home

Presence home security system keeps the sensors, skips the fees

Everyone wants to keep their home safe. Not everyone wants to pay the sometimes steep monitoring fees associated with doing so. The result? Houses everywhere essentially are left unprotected.

The Presence home security system gives both renters and homeowners peace of mind without taking a piece of their wallet with it.  It uses the cameras and Wi-Fi connectivity of the spare smartphones and tablets most people already have, and puts them to use alongside a variety of sensors, like motion and temperature, to keep any household safe from intruders, flooding, and a variety of other problems.

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Sensors/IoT

HemaVision thermal imaging device helps you see temperature of everything around you

Thermal imaging devices can be handy because they can be used to accurately gauge the temperature of various objects all around one’s home. The problem with some of them, however, is that they don’t inform the user if the measured temperature is within a normal range or not.

patent-claimedThe maker of HemaVision, a computer vision-enabled thermal imager, is out to change that. HemaVision can be used to help users diagnose problems in their building or anywhere else where temperature levels are important. For example, it can be used to determine if a circuit breaker is running at an abnormally high temperature. Thermal imagers work because all objects give off a small amount of long-wave infrared light, with hotter items giving off more light than colder things. HemaVision will cost $295 and ships in October. Its maker set a Kickstarter funding goal of raising $40,000 by May 4.

HemaVision has potential but it’s not clear how many consumers are interested in adding a single-function electronic device to their arsenal of home safety products along with must-have, and much cheaper, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. It stands to reason that many consumers might be much more comfortable using a smartphone app or accessory that performs a similar function without the thermal imaging component.

 

 

 

Categories
Smart Home

RoomBox smart home hub uses everything but the kitchen sink to control the home

Home automation is in a touch position, particularly in its adoption. Many of those who use such systems are usually more tech-savvy than others. Those who don’t are perfectly content manually flicking on a light, messing around with the AC settings, or fumbling with different remotes to turn on their TVs or DVD players.

The problem is that most of a person’s home isn’t equipped to become smart, but now the RoomBox changes all of that. Anything with a remote control is fair game for the product’s help, and allows any iOS, Android, or Windows device to remotely control them with a companion app. Anything without a remote control requires a Smart Plug that interacts wirelessly with the RoomBox, giving lamps and coffee makers a boost of IQ.

The RoomBox is loaded with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a temperature sensor, humidity sensor, and motion sensor. Each of these parts work together to do things like automatically turn on an AC when a user is nearing home, for example, or turn off all the active devices and lights in a room when they leave. The $20,000 campaign isn’t clear about when it would like to have RoomBoxes in people’s homes.

All the aforementioned functionality is only really possible with multiple RoomBoxes, forcing people to invest in a more than one $47 unit. Add onto that $27 for each Smart Plug to truly get the most out of a home, and the costs can add up quickly. The Droplit system employs some of the same tricks as RoomBox, but with the addition of scenes and more of a reliance of Bluetooth. Both suffer from similar drawbacks in having to use multiples of either units or remotes, taking a lot of the utility out of it. RoomBox is a solid choice though. It interacts with so much more of the home when compared to other similar solutions.