Hiya, and good Sunday morning; overcast outside at the moment. In the mood to read a physical paper, which I haven’t done in a while! Must pop down to the shop later and pick up a copy of the Sunday Business Post! So, some cool smart home stories this week, and here they are:
Thread in Your Windows
Thread, touted as the protocol of choice for the smart home of the future, gained another fan this week. And this time, it’s embedded into a smart blind. The thread-enabled smart blinds are provided by a Swedish company called OmniaBlinds. According to the companies website, the smart blinds were designed with a major advocate of Thread – Eve! Setup is slated to be really easy and should play nice with your other HomeKit products.
Availability is not until September and prices seem to start at circa $300.
Finally, Amazon Embraces Matter
Amazon has finally broken its silence on its plans for the Matter open-source cross-platform smart home standard. And the news is very positive. The company announced this week that most Echo and Echo Dot speakers and every Echo Studio, Echo Show, Echo Plus, and Echo Flex will all be upgraded to the new standard. When this will happen is unknown at this stage, but the pundits reckon, we could see the Matter and Alexa marriage take place later in 2021. You can check out this article over on Verge to read some more on the subject.
This Weeks Blog Post
Honeywell and Nest are without a doubt the most popular manufacturers of smart thermostats. The two companies have been known to manufacture smart thermostats that are both energy efficient and convenient to use.
Among the best-selling smart thermostats from each brand is the Honeywell RTH9580WF Wi-Fi smart thermostat and Nest Learning thermostat. These thermostats have a lot in common and some key differences that appeal to some homeowners. To get you acquainted with these specific differences and similarities, here is a comparison between the two smart thermostats.
>> Read the complete article on the blog
This Week’s Words of Wisdom 😊
Nokia Smart Lights
Feels kinda weird mentioning Nokia and smart lights in the same sentence. But, Yes Nokia also seems to have some smart home aspirations. To fulfill their dreams, the company released a new line of smart dimmers, switches, and outlets based on a smart home protocol called Insteon. Very robust, reliable, and around for years, but an unusual choice, I would have thought. My first phone way back along was a Nokia and wish the company well in their new smart home journey. There are plenty more details in the full article from Techhive. Give it a read here!
Alexa Man’s Up
It looks like Amazon is quietly rolling out a masculine version of Alexa. Named Ziggy, the new voice option should be available on most Alexa devices around the world. The Ziggy wake word joins Alexa, Computer, and Echo. If you’re looking to learn some more on Ziggy, head over to this article.
Weekly Smart Home Voice Command! 🎤
Hey Siri, set my bedtime scene
This is it for today, See you next Sunday 😉. If you have colleagues, friends, or neighbors that would benefit from knowing about smart home devices, please consider sharing them.
They can sign up for the newsletter by going here.
– Gerard