Hiya, and good evening; apologies for the slight delay in timing. I was away last night with some college friends in a small village over in County Clare. And needless to say, a few beers 🍺🍺 were part of the meetup! So back to business, here are some interesting smart home stories this week:
HomeKit Will Mind Your Whiskey 🥃
Yale the bastion of security since the 1800s has released a new cabinet lock. So not only, will you be able to secure your boost, but this HomeKit enabled lock can also help protect medicines, paper, and even cash! Here are some more details for those of you who want to add this to your smart home
Alexa Emergencies 🚒
Although not available in this part of the world, Alexa includes a really useful feature called Alexa Care. As the name infers, it enables caregiving features such as asking for help. Once this command is used, a notification is sent to the caregiver, which can save lives during an emergency situation. To date, this functionality was free, however, Amazon released an enhanced version of the service called Alexa Together, which will cost $20 a month. With the together version of this feature, people will get access to a professional emergency helpline, which can be really helpful when a loved one is experiencing difficulties. More details are in this article.
This Weeks Blog Post ✍️
Apple is one of the major companies that provide home automation solutions to homeowners. While you might think that all automation companies provide the same solutions to users, Apple Homekit is a bit different.
Nowadays, most people view Apple as the future of home automation because it provides a unique vision to homeowners. This is a more enhanced and exclusive vision than what Amazon, Google, and other automation giants offer.
More people are opting for Apple Homekit for their automation solutions, and this hasn’t gone without notice. For this reason, you might ask yourself what is so unique about Homekit that most people prefer.
Here are some of the benefits of a Homekit-powered smart home; >> Read the complete article on the blog
Ikea and Sonos Lamp Update 🛋️
I was actually in IKEA Dublin recently and came across these Symfonisk lamps on display. Didn’t pick one up, but half tempted to splash some cash on the latest version of the lamp announced recently. Here are some things I like about this latest smart lamp:
- Supports Wi-Fi and interoperates with other Sonos speakers.
- Capable of connecting with multiple streaming music services.
- Some cool cosmetic changes when compared to the original lamp.
- Supports a wider range of smart bulb socket types.
If you’re looking to find out some more, then check this article out.
Automations Based Humidity 💦
The sophistication of HomeKit automation continues to improve. According to a recent 9 to 5 mac article, iOS 15.1 will support humidity sensor-based automation. With the new feature, you will be able to trigger:
- Switch on air-conditioning at a certain humidity level.
- Fire up the heating when at a specified humidity point.
If interested in activating this feature, then look no further than Aqara, Onvis, or indeed Eve for a HomeKit compatible humidity sensor.
Weekly Smart Home Voice Command! 🎤
Turn off the lights in the holiday home!
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