Smart Home

Amazon, Google, Apple, and the Zigbee Alliance announced a new partnership called Project Connected Home over IP. It will create a new smart home standard so their products can work together. Sadly, we won’t see a draft specification until late next year. But the good news is that the partnership is announced and there will be a spec and open source materials, too. Continue Reading →

Since we first met the Jetsons on September 23, 1962, the idea of a smart home has enthralled us. In the 56 years since the show’s premiere, technology has advanced in ways Hanna-Barbera could never have dreamed of, yet we’re no closer to a world where Rosie the Robot is real. What gives? Continue Reading →

We are just a few years away from smart everything. It’s a story being told thousands of different ways at CES this year, but it’s also a story being told at the Kitchen & Bath Show, the Detroit Auto Show and every other trade show for every other industry. IoT is more than a trend; it’s a road that we will all take into the future. Continue Reading →

Best Buy is creating new in-store Connected Home departments that should roll out to more than 400 stores by Thanksgiving (yes, there’s also a website). The departments will contain more than 100 smart home products, including the Peq hub, Nest and Honeywell thermostats, Dropcam cameras, Hue lights and many other brands large and small. There Continue Reading →

The center of a connected smart home could soon be the Apple TV, as Apple’s latest beta software officially brings HomeKit support to its $99 streaming set-top box. As first discovered by AppleInsider, Apple’s own notes for Apple TV Software beta 2 released on Tuesday note that the pre-release build “includes support for Family Sharing Continue Reading →

One day soon, we’ll be able to control just about every element of our homes from our smartphone. Thanks to a new Kickstarter campaign, we can add window blinds to that list. A company called Tilt My Blinds will soon let you control your existing blinds’ tilt mechanism through a smartphone app, wall switch or Continue Reading →

Right now, most people don’t want a smart home. And while about 13 percent of people have an internet-connected device that isn’t a computer, phone or tablet in their homes, according to research from Parks Associates, the marketing of the smart home for the consumer is still very far out of reach. Last week, I Continue Reading →

If you have Insteon gear set up in your home (a fair number of people do) and you also are toting a Microsoft handset (a smaller number) then you can control your home via voice command using Microsoft’s Cortana personal digital assistant. Since I’m a huge fan of voice control in the home, and we’re Continue Reading →

Amazon will boost staffing at its secretive Silicon Valley-based hardware unit by at least 27 percent over the next five years as it tests Internet-connected “smart” home gadgets such as a one-button device to order supplies. The plans, detailed in a little-known government document and by people familiar with the matter, signal Chief Executive Officer Continue Reading →

Harmony remotes have been an essential tool in any serious home theater setup for years now, but on Wednesday, Logitech turned its focus to home automation and controlling every room in your house. It just announced new, rebranded versions of its upper-tier remotes, which now all fall under the “Harmony Living Home” line. To be Continue Reading →