As always, lots going on in both the smart home and wearables space this week. Here are some of the news items that caught our attention :
WHAT’S GOING ON AT HOMEMENTORS
Had a pretty interesting week; sales of our digital products continue to grow. In fact, I tested out a promotion of the Manage Your Home with a Smartphone App! book over on Kindle yesterday and 774 units were downloaded.! Yet another indication that smart homes are getting adopted by the general population.
Click Here to grab your own copy over on Amazon.
SAMSUNG SMART HOUSES ARE GOING GLOBAL
The Al Bawaba Business service is reporting that Samsung is expanding their smart home mobile app services across the world. The new app provided by Samsung is slightly different to Google’s and Apple’s smart home platforms in the sense that there is more of a focus on automating connected devices such as kitchen appliances and TVs.
SMART HOUSE SECURITY AND VULNERABILITY ISSUES
Forbes reports this week on how weak some smart home devices are when it comes to security.
For instance, in recent times, researchers have uncovered security flaws in a number of popular lighting control and smart camera products.
Not a major issue at the moment; but people do need to be cognizant that smart home electronic gadgets can be susceptible to security breaches.
To mitigate this risk, HomeMentors recommends that you ensure all smart home devices are kept up to date with the latest software releases.
USING SMART HOUSE TO HELP PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
In addition to using smart home systems to improve security, safety, and convenience levels, smart homes can also be used to help disabled people. In fact, at this years enabling Conference; a number of speakers provided various examples of how smart home technologies could be used by people who have different types of disabilities to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
YET ANOTHER SMART HOME STANDARD IS LAUNCHED
Reuters reports this week that Samsung Electronics, Intel Corp, and Dell have joined forces to create the Open Interconnect Consortium – a new organization that hopes to create standards that will enhance interoperability between various smart devices.
WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY COULD BE A $50 BILLION INDUSTRY BY 2018
A new report released by ON World this week forecasts that wearable technology devices – which include everything from smartwatches to smart clothing and from fitness bands to smart glasses – will make up an industry worth $50 billion by the year 2018.