All the comforts of the smart home
Unlock your doors, dim the lights, adjust heat using wireless gadgetry
You can now use your smartphone to unlock the front door, dim the lights and run the bath. Whether your motivation is security, convenience, environmental concerns, or all three, home automation is where we’ve arrived.
BETTER BATH TIME
Blu Bathworks, which has more than 100 showrooms across North America, recently released its electronica digital tapware collection, which allows people to control their sinks, showers or tub faucets using wireless technology.
“There’s an app that can be downloaded that basically allows the user to turn their shower or bathtub on or off from their iPhone or iPad. So, for instance, if you’re in the bedroom you can turn on the shower from your bed and you can fill your bath the same way,” says Paula Coen, director of marketing for Blu Bathworks.
The temperature and volume can both be controlled using presets, available for up to three users.
Blu Bathworks has also just launched a sleek-looking shower application called the vision wheel as part of its electronica line. Similar in look to an iPod, it is thermostatic and can control up to three outlets such as hand shower, head shower and body sprays.
“With sustainability at the forefront of everything we’re doing there’s an integrated indicator which displays your water usage and your current temperature reading so that’s handy for anyone who is conscious of water consumption,” says Coen.
LOCK LOGIC
San Francisco company August has brought new meaning to the idea of house keys with its Smart Lock, which it launched last fall.
“It came from personal experience of having to rush home and let in my housekeeper or friends visiting for the weekend and thinking, ‘Gee, with us all having these smartphones now, there’s got to be a better way,’ says August CEO Jason Johnson, who founded the company just over two years ago with designer Yves Behar.
They devised a virtual key system that a homeowner can send to any smartphone user by way of a text message, which is then downloaded through an app and communicates with a physical attachment that fits onto the inside of the door to unlock it.
These keys can be given out and cancelled at the owner’s discretion and any time one is used to access the home, the owner is sent this information in real time.
“It takes less than 10 minutes to install, no service fee required. It’s very beautiful, all metal, (a) very secure device,” says Johnson.
Taking it one step further — allowing homeowners to remotely unlock the door for visitors who arrive and don’t have smartphones — the company has released August Connect, which connects the August Smart Lock with your Wi-Fi network.
FEEL- GOOD GADGETS
Afshin Mehin, founder of Vancouver- based company Woke, specializes in plastic meets pixels products.
For New York company Quirky, Mehin developed smart light switches which connect to the Internet and treat light as a therapeutic source, helping people understand why light makes them feel good.
Woke has also recently released a device called the TZOA, which can be worn or docked at home and measures the air quality through “an ultra small optical particle counter” that is then translated into human-speak through an accompanying smartphone app.
“The challenge was to make a very immaterial thing like air feel more tangible and engaging, interesting and approachable,” says Mehin.
San Francisco company Building Robotics has taken the smart home comforts that people are enjoying and modified them for office environments with its Comfy software system.
“We plug it into the building system and the occupants have an app and can request warm or cold air anywhere in the office and it immediately delivers that and there’s a learning algorithm in the background that listens to all those requests and optimizes the system to save energy and, more importantly, to make the occupants more comfortable,” says Beau Trincia, vice-president of design and communications.
The challenge was to make a very immaterial thing like air feel more tangible and engaging, interesting and approachable