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And now onwards to this week’s smart home news:
All-New Arlo Safe Provides Personal, Family, and Car Safety with One-Tap Access to Emergency Response
Recently, Arlo Technologies, Inc. announced Arlo Safe, an all-new personal safety mobile app that provides one-tap 24/7 Emergency Response, family safety, auto crash detection, and other safety features. The Arlo Safe app is readily available for download on both Android and iOS devices. If you’re looking for additional safety features, you can always choose from the three available monthly subscription plans, which start at $4.99 for individuals, $9.99 for families, and the all-new Safe and Secure Pro plan that offers ultimate security at home and outside for only $19.99.
The new Arlo Safe with 24/7 personal safety solution is ideal for city residents who frequently walk home at night, college students out with friends, elderly family members, daily commuters, and even teenagers who often walk to and from school. Arlo Safe will utilize the technology company’s expertise in smart home security and an easy-to-use design to provide the most secure and comprehensive security mobile app that keeps up with the users’ modern, busy loves.
Safety features like location sharing, 24/7 live agent emergency support, safety alerts, and family check-ins will provide the ultimate on-the-go protection to keep you and your loved ones safe at all times. Some of the best features you’ll find in the new all-new Arlo Safe service include:
- One-touch emergency response: This feature gives you 24/7 access to live safety agents who can send fire, police, or emergency medical responders directly to your location in your time of need. The live agents will talk to you directly and stay with you on the line until help arrives. The mobile app will also provide emergency responders with important details to help them prepare for the emergency situation while in transit.
- Family safety: This feature ensures that you never miss a moment as far as your family’s safety is concerned. You’ll be able to know where all family members have been, see their live location, and send help when they’re in an emergency situation. Also, you can send check-in requests to family members or set up common places such as home, school, and office so that you can receive real-time notifications when family members arrive or leave. Additionally, you’ll be alerted immediately a family member leaves a certain designated area.
- Crash detection and response: The all-new Arlo Safe service comes with advanced auto crash detection capable of sending emergency responders to your location in the event of an accident. The mobile will share your live location and enable audio and video recordings to share vital information with the police and emergency responders following a crash. It’s worth noting that this feature is available in any vehicle, including rental cars, or when commuting with family and friends.
Working jointly with the Arlo Safe app, the Arlo Safe button can be used to send emergency responders to your location in the event of an emergency situation. This button is small enough to fit in your keychain or pocket and uses Bluetooth to communicate with the mobile app. This way, you can discreetly alert emergency responders of the situation without actually reaching out to your phone.
Currently, the Arlo Safe button is available for $29.99 at Arlo.com. You can also find this button at Best Buy as part of the Safe Family bundle, which includes two Arlo Safe buttons and a one-year subscription to the Arlo Safe Family plan for $119.99. In the coming days, the Arlo Safe button will be available at more retailers nationwide.
How to Use the Delay Feature on IFTTT
IFTTT is a great platform for building Applets that perform various actions when one trigger is met. However, what happens when you don’t want to execute a certain action right away? What if you want to wait for a while, and it executes the action for that? Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about that anymore.
IFTTT has introduced delays, meaning that you can now delay or put a short way between your triggers and actions to help unlock all kinds of potentials with your respective workflow. These delays are ideal, especially when sending confirmation for follow-up events and social media post actions. These delays also apply to your email or any other time you want to wait a bit before executing a certain action.
Here is a step-by-step guide on how to add a delay to your Applet:
- Create an Applet
- Set the initial trigger
- Click the ‘Plus sign’ and select ‘Delay’
- Set the amount of time you want the delay to occur between the trigger and the actual action
- Choose your action
- Save
What is the difference between ‘Time and Date’ and ‘Delay’ by IFTTT?
The ‘Date and Time’ trigger enables IFTTT users to schedule their Applet to run hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly based on their preference. This is usually tailored to your time zone. On the other hand, the Delay feature allows you to set a pre-described time ranging from 15 seconds to 3 hours and 55 minutes between a trigger and an action. IFTTT also has a filter that allows users to set whether they want a certain action to take place on certain days of the week or
skip specific days.
How long can I delay an action?
IFTTT users can delay actions for as short as 15 seconds or as long as almost four hours. You can choose between 0 to 3 hours, 5 to 55 minutes, or 5 to 55 seconds.
Reasons to delays an action
- Avoid rate-abused flags on social media: With IFTTT delay it’s possible for you to slow down how often you post on social media by setting intervals between posts.
- Follow-up messaging: If you’re using IFTTT to automate emails or text messages to potential customers, this feature can help you set a 30-second or 5-minute delay between the time a customer fills out a form and the time you respond with an automated message.
- Add rows to a spreadsheet: Using IFTTT delays, you can create a short interval between a trigger and action to give your computer enough time to space out rows on your spreadsheet accordingly.
Matter Is Finally Official with 190 Certified Products
Just one month after the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) finalized Matter 1.0, the organization behind the all-new smart home connectivity standard held a big launch event in Amsterdam. During this event, the CSA explained how your smart home devices would work with Matter and the upcoming Matter updates you should expect in the coming days.
Tobin Richardson, the CSA president, also stated that since Matter 1.0 was launched about a month ago, 20 more companies have joined the organization, and more are expected to do so. According to CSA, there are now about 190 certifications that are in progress or finished for new smart products. Additionally, the Matter specs were downloaded over 4000 times, while the Software Development Kit (SDK) was downloaded over 2500 times.
During the launch event, CSA also confirmed that the alliance would hold a bi-annual event to showcase new smart devices, new updates, and continuous improvement in a reliable timeline. At the moment, cameras, energy management, and appliances will get the first priority. In the near future, the organization wants to elevate stability and create a great experience to ensure that all products run smoothly under the new connectivity standard.
Additionally, Matter will get a Product Security Working Group as the organization acknowledges the importance of progress in the security department. As a result, the organization wants to offer built-in security within its protocol. For CSA, getting to this point has taken a lot of hard work. If you recall, Matter was first conceptualized as Project CHIP in 2019.
The organization has faced many obstacles along the way and was even forced to postpone its long-awaited launch from 2021 to 2022 to ensure that all devices were working smoothly with the new standard. With Matter, it’s expected that more people will set up their smart homes, and compatibility issues will be a thing of the past.
After purchasing your preferred products, it will only take you a few seconds to set them up and start controlling them with any controller app you want, including Google Home, Apple Home, Samsung SmartThings, or using voice assistants like Amazon Alexa. In addition to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Thread, Matter-compatible products also work offline. This means that you can still control your smart home devices even if you have an issue with your internet provider.
Even though the big launch has just happened, Matter is still in its development stages and only works with a few devices, such as lights, plugs, shades, HVAC controls, door locks, TVs, safety and security sensors, and many others. However, the alliance is working on expanding the feature set for these devices and the supported device types.
During the launch, several technology companies announced new Matter-compatible products or promised to update their existing devices to support the connectivity standard. These companies include Amazon, Aqara, Brilliant, Nanoleaf, Philips Hue, Schneider Electric, Silicon Labs, and Tuya.
Generally, Matter will make it possible for users to purchase products without worrying about their compatibility with your smart home. If a device is Matter-compatible, it will work with other Matter-compatible devices without the need to be connected to the internet at all times.
Amazon Brings Matter to Echo Devices and Philips Hue Adopts Matter
With the just concluded Matter official launch, Amazon has announced that it will bring Matter support to 17 of its Echo devices from December this year. However, the rollout of Matter support for Amazon will be a bit limited. This is because:
- There is only support for Matter via Wi-Fi, not Thread
- It’s only compatible with Android devices
- The only supported products are smart plugs, switches, and bulbs
The good news is that Amazon plans to expand Matter support to iOS and Thread as well as support for more products in early 2023. The Amazon devices that will get Matter support include Echo Dot (Fifth-gen), Echo Dot (fifth-gen) with Clock, Echo (fourth-gen), Echo Dot (third-gen, 2018 release), Echo Studio, Echo Show 8 (second-gen, 2021 release), Echo Show 10 (third-gen), Echo Show 5 (second-gen, 2021 release), Echo Dot (third-gen) with Clock, Echo Dot (forth-gen) with Clock, Echo Show 5, Echo (v3), Echo Dot (forth-gen), Echo Input, Echo Flex, Echo Plus (v2), and Echo Show 8. These devices will serve as ‘Matter Controllers,’ which means that you can use them to control Matter-compatible devices using Amazon Alexa.
Philips Hue adopts Matter
According to The Verge, the Philips Hue Bridge is now Matter-certified. Signify says that users can now download the beta firmware starting today, while a software update will be available starting March 2023. The Philips Hue Bridge update will preserve your previous settings and personalizations inside the Philips Hue app. This also includes Google Home and Amazon integrations. However, Apple HomeKit users will need to reset to connect again via Matter.
The good news for Philips Hue Bridge owners is that they’ll get maximum value for their purchases since Signify will continue leaning on the bridge for years to come.
The Future of Sensors and Older Adults
Even though so many people want to help older adults, help is often elusive. For instance, take a look at how much time it took to be able to purchase hearing aids over the counter. Also, it took a whole decade between the first wave of useful sensor tech for seniors and the newer offerings.
Additionally, there is a shortage of workers in the care industries due to the lack of a much-needed pay rise that would attract even more workers. Given the popular belief that aging in place at home is a good thing and AgeTech is the solution, this should be the year we revisit the pay rise issue and deploy the required technology. Here are some of the new developments in this industry:
A breakthrough in hearing aid pricing
Recent reports indicate that the prices and features of Over-The-Counter hearing aids will greatly vary just as much as prescription hearing aids. A pair of prescription hearing aids costs between $2,000 and $8,000. Now, the technology found in these pricier prescription hearing aids will also, be found in the cheaper OTC ones.
Some changes in care technology will be totally different later in this decade
If you consider the implications of adopting sensors to deliver better for older adults, you may wonder what will be different in the second technology wave. Most people believe that an increasing population aged over 80 years, innovation in offerings, and caregiving labor shortages all combine to boost utility and adoption across all care sectors.
In the next five years, some of the things that may change in the caregiving industry include:
- Standards adoption like Matter support will simplify the deployment of sensors
- Asynchronous caregiving will prevail to supplement scarce work staff
- The cost of care will become more aligned with what families and organizations can afford
- Predicted analytics will become more targeted and actionable
- Data privacy protections will become a major part of solution planning in the caregiving industry
- Sensor technology will allow caregiving to be moved from institutions to homes
AgeTech trends that matter to older adults
2022 has been a great year for emerging trends that help older adults, also known as AgeTech. The timing for this has been impeccable, especially considering that over 56 million Americans today are over 65 years old. With that being said, investors have already started taking notice of the AgeTech opportunity.
This is because as much as the older population is growing, there still isn’t enough support labor force for aging services. Therefore, we expect better technologies to be rolled out to help mitigate the growing labor crisis in the caregiving industry. Some of these technologies include:
- AI-based cameras and sensor systems that can detect a change based on tech close to the user alert staffers without the need for Wi-Fi
- Fall technology sensors that span multiple rooms
- Increase in use of voice technology so that older adults can receive initial responses after making service requests
- The sale of OTC hearing aids to those in need without involving audiologists
- AI and machine learning for older adults, available through downloadable mobile apps such as Seeing AI
Smart Home AI-Generated Illustration of the Week!
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– Gerard
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