Hiya fellow smart homers, spent the last few days down with my parents in Cork and just back this morning. Looking forward to a relaxed Sunday ahead, here are some smart home news stories that came to light this past week.
Smart Home Resignation 👋
One of Apples’ high-profile SH people moved on last week. His name is Sam Jadallah, and he is/was Apple’s head of home services. His intentions were made public on a LinkedIn post and no reason was given as to why he was quitting. According to sources, Jadallah worked on various HomeKit initiatives, such as HomeKit Secure Video, and adaptive lighting.
A Voice Partnership 🎤
This story is aimed at those of you involved with high-end custom smart homes.
In particular, it relates to the announcement by Control4 that they have partnered with voice control specialist josh.ai. Here are some notable highlights:
- Both companies are jointly developing a new software driver.
- Control 4 partners will now have direct access to josh.ai solutions.
- The solution is privacy-centric.
Although, aimed at high-end homes; it’s interesting to see how AI is getting implemented within the context of a smart home.
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
Interesting Smart Lock Cash 💰
Level home, one of the more high-profile smart lock manufacturers out there has received a cash injection of $100 million. The companies locks are really sleek and one of their key features is the ability to fit into the existing deadbolt door cavity. In addition to the new funding, Level has also announced that they have acquired a SaaS-based smart device management platform for multifamily properties called Dwelo. If you’re looking to dig in deeper, keep reading here.
Sleep Tight Nest 😴
A quick recap, the latest iteration of the Nest Hub includes a sensor that is capable of measuring your sleep quality. The sensor uses a radar technology called Soli. The sense I am getting is the feature is not overly used at the moment. To improve uptake, Google Nest has recently released some improvements:
- The Nest Hub will now include a chart that displays the various stages of your night’s sleep.
- A sound detection update that is calibrated to your sleeping area. In other words, partner snoring and dogs barking will be ignored.
- Integration with the Calm sleeping app. This is a pretty big win for Calm and will provide Nest Hub owners with the ability to access various flavors of meditations.
All in all, this is interesting and I have the latest Google Nest hub, and I may very well use this feature when released here on the Emerald Isle.
You can read the full announcement here.
Weekly Smart Home Voice Command! 🎤
Hey Google, play some jazz in the kitchen
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