GET SMART
This is not a dystopian, sci-fi future — tech-savvy homes are a reality. Fridges can give you a recipe and gadgets can make beds.
Pi cture this: You and your self-driving vehicle pull into your driveway and the garage door rises automatically thanks to the GPS in your smartphone. You quickly tap the phone to open the door to your house and once inside you tell the lights to come on in a room, already warm thanks to a thermostat that’s learned your daily routine.
This is not a dystopian, sci- fi future. This is reality for people in smart homes, where a fridge can give you a recipe and a gadget can make your bed.
“How useful a s mart home device is depends on the product,” said Patrick O’Rourke, who covers the technology for the Canadian tech- focused website MobileSyrup.
O’Rourke uses smart devices in his Toronto home to control everything from lighting to temperature.
Devices for nearly every room in your home were all over CES, the popular consumer electronics and technology expo, in Las Vegas last month.
Take the kitchen ... cooking and grocery shopping couldn’t be easier than with the FridgeCam. It literally takes stock of everything in the fridge, tells you when something is about to expire and will even suggest recipes.
And if you need to toss out some packaging a smart trash can, f rom Simplehuman, will open and close when you tell it to and will let you know when it’s time to buy more garbage bags.
For the bedroom, the 360 Smart Bed will readjust your mattress as you move in the night to make sure you’re comfortable. If you begin to snore, it will also carefully raise your head to open your airwaves. And once you wake up, the Montreal-based Smart Duvet will make your bed at the press of a button (it uses inflatable tubes to realign the sheets).
And there’s more. The c o mpany Nes t makes thermostats and sensors to control the temperature according to your preferences throughout the day, monitor your heating and cooling systems, and tell you how much money you’ve saved on your energy bill through an app. Toronto- based Ecobee also has smart thermostats with similar features.
O’Rourke's Ecobee3 gives him control of his home’s energy bill no matter where he is located.
"( It) allows me to change the temperature of my home from anywhere I have an Internet connection, which also saves me money in the long run,” he said.
O’Rourke is also a fan of the Phillips Hue lighting system.
From strips to bulbs, the system connects a series of smart LED lights to change colours and set the appropriate mood, they can be motion activated when someone enters a room, or sync to entertainment systems to be interactive.
“I love Philips Hue lights because they’re easy to set up and are very responsive,” he said. “Setting them up on a daily schedule, where they turn off at a certain time and turn on at a certain time, is useful, too.”
However, not all devices are practical or worthwhile.
“Some smart- home products are a little stupid, sort of shoehorning Wi- Fi into products for little reason,” said O’Rourke. “I see this trend continuing.”
THE FIGHT FOR CONTROL OF YOUR HOME
All sorts of companies are jumping on the bandwagon and tech giants in particular are stepping up the fight for consumer homes.
For example, Amazon’s Alexa, a digital personal assistant inspired by Star Trek and built into the company’s hands- free Echo speaker product can answer questions and do things such as play music. Echo has become the centre of the smart home — at least in the U. S. It’s not available in Canada at this point.
Amazon’s made the software available so companies can choose to put Alexa in their own products, or make their products compatible with Alexa-powered devices.
You could find Alexa built into refrigerators, TVs, speakers, lamps, alarm clocks and phones at the CES. Alexa skills were also added into things like washers, dryers, ovens, vacuums, security systems and light switches.
O’Rourke was able to get an Amazon Echo and uses it like a central hub for his home.
“Having ( t he devices) run through the Echo with specific voice commands works great,” he said, adding it’s a shame Canadians can’t get it yet.
Meanwhile, Google and Apple aren’t going down without a fight.
Google has its own virtual assistant built into its Pixel smartphone and an Echolike Google Home speaker, however it’s primarily an information database so far with limited smart home connectivity much l i ke Apple’s Siri.
Both Google and Apple have been working on creating one central app for use in a smartphone or tablet to control all smart devices. The convenience factor is there, but it seems a little lacklustre after seeing Alexa control everything by voice.
For e xample, Apple’s HomeKit technology got a boost last fall when the company announced its Home app for iOS 10. The app has quick access to all of your devices and you can program presets for everything with a quick tap, or Siri command.
“With HomeKit, we make sure your home automation products work t ogether easily and securely,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice- president of Software Engineering, said at a San Francisco event last year.
Companies have been quickly adapting to Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems because they dominate the mobile market, however Amazon’s surprise runaway success means the other two tech giants will no doubt be fighting harder to control people’s smart homes with the ease of one device.
“Homebuilders are gett i ng on board, as well,” Federighi said at the Apple event.
“Some of t he biggest builders of homes here in the United States and in China are building new homes with HomeKit built right in so you can just move in and start controlling your home.”
Amazon has growing to do this year, too, as the Echo is only available in the U. S., United Kingdom and Germany at the moment. However, with so many new products announced at CES having Alexa integration or support, the online retailer is now being forced to ramp up expansion to new markets including Canada.
“Apple’s Home does a decent job, but only works with devices that support it,” O’Rourke said. “Amazon’s Echo and Alexa, which aren’t officially available in Canada, also do a great job of connecting devices, though not everything supports them either.”
The tech battle for your home is set to intensify in the months and years to come. Who knows how smart it will be in the future.