Lighthouse monitor watches your house
Can tell you who walked the dog or if the kids had lunch
Lighthouse, an artificial intelligence services start-up with roots in the selfdriving car world, wants to do for the home what the DARPA Grand Challenge did for autonomous cars.
The 2-year-old start-up has developed an interactive assistant for the home that, essentially, does the opposite of Alexa, Amazon’s voice-activated personal assistant. While Alexa keeps consumers connected to the outside world while they’re at home, Lighthouse keeps consumers connected to their homes while they’re far away.
The interactive assistant, its form resembling a mini-lighthouse, leverages deep learning and 3-D sensing technology developed as part of the DARPA Grand Challenge, the world-renowned competition in which autonomous vehicles navigate an off-road course.
A camera captures the comings and goings at home, displaying highlights over a smartphone screen when asked via voice what happened or didn’t happen during the course of a day, said Alex Teichman, CEO and co-founder of Lighthouse.
Such technology in the home, for instance, lets consumers know when the kids had lunch, whether the handyman showed up and who walked the dog, Teichman said.
The possibilities for the connected home have gained Lighthouse powerful backers in ex- Googlers Andy Rubin and Sebastian Thrun. “It brings superpowers” to the connected home, said Rubin, who once led Google’s robotics and automation division.
The device and intelligence service comes in three bundles: $399 for one year, $499 for three years and $599 for five years. Lighthouse is taking preorders (www.light.house) for shipping in September.