Hiya, Gerard here!
Good Morning and hope your weekend is going well, a few quick notes about the goings-on in the smart home space last week.
Motion and Batteries
To date in the world of Ring smart home, the customizable motion zone feature was confined to wired iterations of their products. This week, the company announced availability for their wireless equivalents, which is great news! Just recently installed a wireless Ring doorbell on the O’Driscoll front door last week as part of the 8 week smart home challenge. Here are some of the key takeaways from the Ring blog:
- Most importantly this feature is free!
- Tailor areas to suit your needs; for instance, you can exclude trees blowing in the wind and focus attention on motion detection on entryways, front porch, front garden, and so on…
- If you are already a proud owner of a Ring camera then Simply updating the Ring app will enable this new magic.
Check out this article on the ring blog for some more details.
Wyze Smart Rain
Yes Wyze, are at it again this week with the release of yet another smart device – a smart sprinkler system!
The company (founded by some ex-Amazon people) shot to stardom in the Smart Home world with the release of an in-expensive smart camera (branded WyzeCam). Since then, the startup has grown its portfolio of smart devices to encompass smart doorbells, thermostats, locks, vacuum, bulbs, and so on…Going back to the sprinkler it supports 8 Zones and connects with a Wi-Fi network and water your plants when they get thirsty; not a problem here in Ireland 🙂
Unfortunately Wyze have not expanded across the Atlantic yet, but looking forward to integrating into the O’Driscoll house at some stage in the future. If the product is of interest, here are some further details.
Smart Home Lights out?
To date, our friend aka Google Assitant was limited to switching smart bulbs and switches on and off and lacked scheduling functionality. The word on the street over at Android Police is that Google Assitant is smarter nowadays and can do cool stuff such as:
- Tell your smart bulbs or switches to turn off after a period of time.
- Tell your smart lights to switch on at a particular time.
- With a little bit of effort, you can also set light schedules to activate at sunset and sunrise.
Here are a few more details over at Android Police.
EU Homekit
It’s been a while since French company Somfy came across my radar. They made headlines back a bunch of years ago with a smart home hub called Tahoma. Automated window dressings have always served as the company’s ‘bread and butter’ when it comes to generating revenue. Tahoma seems to be aimed at DIY and a do it for me type customers. To date, the hub interoperates with Alexa, IFTTT, and Google Assitant. However, it now appears that the company is looking to tip its toes into the HomeKit world. Take a look at this site to learn some more about Somfy’s plans.
Smart Home Blast from the past!
Used to install lots of Leviton smart devices, many years ago 🙂
#DYK: Leviton’s Decora Smart Wi-Fi Outlet lets you set a time schedule or use your voice to control your holiday & tree lights? So ditch those old school timers – make your holiday smarter & brighter with app, voice, & schedule control. Learn more: https://t.co/Ib7rP45QSmpic.twitter.com/C4SdgKUGsC
— Leviton (@Leviton) November 23, 2020
Weekly Smart Home Voice Command!
Hey Siri, turn off the lights downstairs
Thanks for reading! Until next week, Gerard
P.S. For Cyber Monday I am offering $100 off my latest Smart home in 8 Weeks course. Check it out here.