Hiya on this wet Sunday morning here in Ireland! Due to brighten up later, no major news in the smart home world this week. Everything is gone slow due to holiday season, anyway enjoy the few snippets I came across this past seen days:
Matter TV 📺
Controlling TVs from a smart home can be confusing in certain households. As with many things nowadays, Matter holds the keys to improving some of the issues surrounding TV control. For instance, at the moment, we have a bunch of company-specific protocols (Apple’s Airplay and Google Cast for instance) that could in theory be replaced with a new Matter TV control protocol. Similar to the proprietary solutions the new spec will support core functions such as:
- Turning the volume up and down
- Navigating channels
- Managing sources
Although, no demos are available yet, looking forward to enabling these capabilities in the O’Driscoll household next year all going well. If you’re looking to dig in deeper, check out this article over at the Verge.
Dodgy Smart Home Passwords 🔑
Our neighbors in the UK are proposing a new smart home security law related to passwords. The law if passed in parliament will require smart home equipment manufacturers to adhere to new IT cyber-security standards. Under the new product security and telecommunications infrastructure bill, smart home manufacturers will no longer be able to use default passwords. If the manufacturers are bold and don’t comply then the bill supports fines. It’s a good law and long overdue. All the details about the bill can be found here.
This Weeks Blog Post ✍️
Smart home automation is one of the greatest investments any homeowner can make. Home automation ensures that all your home functionalities run with ease while you’re enjoying all the comfort. One of the most important smart devices you might need or not is the smart hub. A smart is ensures that your smart products from different manufacturers can work together from one central platform. In simple terms, a smart hub acts as the brain and main controller of all your smart devices to achieve home automation. With a smart hub, you can control smart devices over any network you choose. It can be via Bluetooth, home Wi-Fi, Zigbee, or Z-Wave. However, like most technologies and devices, a smart hub has its advantages and disadvantages to homeowners. They include; >> Read the complete article on the blog
Amazon Walkies
According to some US government filings, Amazon has requested the approval of a new smart home device called the Sidewalk Ring Bridge Pro. We can only speculate but the addition of the word ‘Pro’ at the end indicates a requirement for professional installment. By the way, Amazon Sidewalk is a shared network that helps devices like Amazon Echo devices, Ring Security Cams, outdoor lights, motion sensors, and Tile trackers work. Although currently confined to residential properties, the addition of this new device signals the expansion of Sidewalk into commercial properties. Check out the FCC site to access more technical details.
Weekly Smart Home Voice Command! 🎤
Ok Google, Play Some Music
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.
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– Gerard