THE SMART HOME
Up your home’s IQ with some savvy high tech devices
It was hard to avoid the world of technology this week as the Web Summit rolled into town and thousands of Internet companies mpanies arrived in Dublin to party. With billions in funding and huge ge teams of programmers behind them,, these companies are setting out to change the way we live our lives.
And one of the major developments that you’ll soon be seeing in homes across the country is the Nest t thermostat. Founder Tony Fadell cel- elebrated his arrival in Ireland this week by announcing that they would be partnering with Electric Ireland to install the device in homes all over Ireland.
For those who’ve never heard of it, Nest is a cute and easy to use little device that sits on a wall in your house and controls the heating by learning your behaviours and favoured temperatures.
We’ve had one in our apartment for a few months now and it really is revolutionary.
Like the iPhone before it, this slick little toy has made our lives much easier, while saving us a fortune in gas bills.
Left the heating on by mistake like I always do? Nest will fix that.
Coming home on a cold winter night? Nest knows what time you finish work and how warm you like the house to be.
You can control it from your phone and, best of all, for those mornings when it’s too cold to get out of bed, you just press ‘on’ on your phone and away you go.
Of course there is a whole array of other high-tech, intelligent and creative devices making their way onto the domestic market.
One is a product called ‘Smart boo’ which re-imagines the light switch on the wall to a round colourful pebble-like device you can hold in your hand.
When introduced to the lamps you wish to control with it, ‘Smart Boo’ remembers and from then on, by placing it on any surface you can tap it to put your lights on or off, and rotate it to dim the lights up or down. It also has a natural dimming function.
Stylish Italian furniture maker Natuzzi (stocked at Arnotts) has a slick leather Sound Chair that offers a full audio experience. The armchair, which has a mid20th century ‘Eames’ look, comes with a 25-watt amplifier and two invisible speakers inside the back cushion and a seat that can be connected with any Mp3 player.
But one of my favourite devices has got to be the iKettle which enables you to start boiling your kettle from anywhere in the house.
Not only can it boil the water for you, but it will also notify you when it needs refilling. Better still the app that controls it has a wake-up alarm, which will trigger the kettle to start boiling for your morning brew! And finally, as we would expect from the Korean tech giant, Samsung is a big gamechanging player in the futuristic a ppl i a nces market.
It has just released a robot vaccum cleaner – the Powerbot Vr9000 – that can be left to its own devices, using builtin sensors to manoeuvre its way around the house. But half the fun has got to lie in spreading out on the sofa and guiding it with the supplied remote control.
Also making waves is Samsung’s touch-screen WW900 washing machine which can be connected to your home’s wifi allowing you to essentially put a wash on via an app on your phone or tablet device at a time most convenient for you.