Controlling Your Home With Your Voice

Part of the pipe dream of home automation is the ability to talk to your home and have it obey your commands. I talked a little while ago about the Amazon Echo, which offered a sort of watered down version of that. It responded to voice commands, but only in the way something like Siri would. No real home control there. Now, there's a new home automation hub making its way through Kickstarter called Zenno, which offers something a lot closer to the dream of true voice control.

On the surface, Zenno is just another hub that connects your smart devices to the internet. The difference is that instead of just allowing you to press buttons on your phone or tablet to control your home, the Zenno app will actually respond to voice commands. This is different from the Amazon Echo, which had microphones built into the device. The advantage of using the microphones inside of your phone is that the mic is always with you, so you don't need a device in every room of your house to listen to you. The downside is that you'll still need to take out your phone and launch the app before you can say a command.

The other problem that I see with Zenno is that it doesn't use any of the standard protocols for communicating with smart devices. Instead, each unit is actually an IR blaster like you would have in your media center. That means that Zenno can only control devices that respond to an IR remote, like your TV or your stereo. There are very few smart devices out there that respond to IR signals. It also means that you need one of these Zenno hubs in every room of your house, at least every room you want to be able to control. So the fairly attractive price of $70 per hub is actually deceiving, because you're going to need more than one hub. And so we keep reaching for the pipe dream...

Upgrading Switches With Switchmate

Another day, another light switch. That's what it starts to feel like after writing about home automation for a while. There are so many "smart" switches out there that a company has to do something fairly unusual to catch my attention. As it so happens, a company called Switchmate has done just that. Their idea is to create a device that can be added to existing light switches to make them smart, rather than buying a completely new switch and installing it yourself.

What they've come up with is the Switchmate, a small block with a button on the front, and essentially a mechanical finger on the back. The whole thing attaches to your light switch plate with magnets, so you don't even have to break out the screw driver. Once it's in place, pushing the button on the front will move a piece in the back that flips the actual switch up or down. Then, of course, you can connect to the Switchmate from your phone and control your lights remotely, or set up timers and triggers to automate things.

So what's the downside here? It's easy, it's simple, and it's relatively cheap at $50 per switch. Well, honestly, it's not the prettiest of solutions. Yes it's fairly small and sleek looking, but it's still a strange looking block hanging off of your wall. And because it's not connected to your home's wiring at all, it has to run off of batteries, which will need to be replaced from time to time. So it's not quite as "set it and forget it" as most home automation systems could be. But if you're a renter, it's one of the only smart light switches out there that don't require breaking out the tools and going against your lease, so it could be a nice starter for someone wanting to break into home automation. If this isn't your thing? Well, another day, another switch.

Make Your Smoke Detectors Less Dumb

If there's one thing that's absolutely necessary in every home, yet is always annoying, it's a smoke detector. Sure, they can be life saving, and usually you don't even know they're there. But whenever they need their battery replaced, they start making that annoying chirp sound. And if they go off and no one's home, who's going to call the fire department? The smoke detector is in dire need of a smart upgrade.

There's actually already a solution to this, and it's the Nest Protect, a smoke detector made by the same people that make the Nest thermostat we talked about last week. Unfortunately, it's really, really expensive. I mean, I'm all for peace of mind when it comes to fire safety, but $100 for a smoke detector? No, thank you.

But there's a new device up for pre-order right now that offers most of the benefits of the Nest smoke detector, but only costs a fraction of the cash, and uses your existing smoke detectors. It's a smart battery called The Roost. Essentially, it's a standard 9 volt battery that connects to your home's Wi-Fi network. From there, it connects to an app on your smartphone that will alert you when the battery gets too low, or when the alarm goes off. The batteries cost between $30-$40 depending on what package you get, and the convenience could be well worth it.

IKEA's Electrifying New Furniture

Ah, IKEA. A modern day miracle from Sweden, where little more than the loose change from in between your couch cushions can buy you yet another couch. But IKEA isn't known for their technology, or their home automation abilities. But that might be changing soon.

IKEA has announced that this Spring, they will start selling a new line of furniture with wireless charging built in. That means that you'll be able to buy a nightstand from IKEA with a special pad on it, and if you rest your phone on that pad, it will charge. No wires, no connectors. It's not just nightstands either, you'll be able to get full on tables and lamps with chargers built in, or just the pad itself to rest on other, non-charging furniture.

This is a pretty big move for IKEA, and a big win for the wireless charging industry. But there are a few things to consider before you run out to your local blue and yellow behemoth and pick one of these things up. First of all, the furniture uses the Qi wireless charging standard, one of the most popular standards out there. That's all well and good, but not every phone supports it. There are a handful of android devices that do, but some of them have their own proprietary charging standards. And Apple devices don't support wireless charging at all, unless you buy a bulky case with the receivers built in.

So while this is absolutely a cool idea, it's really only cool for the handful of people with compatible devices. But just wait, wireless charging will undoubtably catch on faster, now that IKEA is behind it.

Your Suggestions: Nest Thermostat

I was curious to see what all of you out there thought of home automation, specifically, why you want it. So I took to the Smart Porch Facebook page (if you haven't like it yet, there's an easy way to fix that) and asked you. One response I got stood out at me, specifically a message that popped up in my inbox from RJ. Apparently he had so much to say, he didn't want to limit it to a comment, and he didn't disappoint:

"I'm saying money's the big reason I want all this stuff. I've seen that new thermostat with the touchscreen at home depot, the big round one? And they were saying if you install it, it saves you a couple hundred bucks on your heating every year. It just sucks because the thing costs like three hundred by itself. Spend money to save money, and all that."

All good points made, RJ. The Nest Thermostat is a beautiful piece of hardware, actually designed by the same man that designed the iPod. Nothing but a round touchscreen and a big dial that's oddly satisfying to spin. And RJ's right, they do claim to be able to save quite a bit on your heating and cooling bill. But how exactly does it do it?

Well, to start with, Nest is dead simple to use. You spin the dial to the temperature you want. If it gets too hot, turn it down. Too cold, turn it up. After a few days of playing with it, it starts to learn what settings you like at specific times of day. Like it colder at night? It will notice, and start automatically cooling the house when it gets dark.

Not only that, but Nest also has motion sensors that can tell when you've left the house. So if you're usually gone for work from 9-5 each weekday, it won't worry about keeping the house comfortable while you're gone. But it will make sure to have it comfy for you when you get back.

Nest is one of the first home automation products I've seen that is genuinely cool looking from every angle, and I would love to have one for myself. But with a price tag of $249, it's tricky to invest in one, even if it claims to pay for itself in savings on your electrical bill. And that's the problem, RJ is absolutely right: You have to spend money to save money, and that's never been truer than it is in home automation.

Is There an Amazon Echo In Here?

Home automation is usually thought of as a complete system, wired throughout the home. Multiple pieces all working together in perfect harmony. That's often the case, but it doesn't always have to be. The Amazon Echo is an example of a type of home automation that, while basic, only requires one device.

At its core, Echo is a bluetooth speaker. It's a tall cylinder that sits in the middle of your home, on a table or shelf. The trick is that it connects to your home's Wi-Fi network, as well as your smartphone, and listens to you. Sounds creepy, doesn't it? Well, it kind of is, but it's kind of cool too. All it's listening for is a trigger word, either "Amazon" or "Alexa." When it hears its name called, it wakes up and starts taking voice commands, very much like Siri or Google Now on your iPhone or Android.

So what can it do? Pretty much everything you'd expect from something like Siri. Set alarms, play music, create to-dos, tell you the weather, etc. Nothing all that fancy. In fact, I would personally wonder what the big difference is between something like this and your smartphone, apart from the fact that you have to press a button on your phone to trigger the voice commands. Even that's a stretch, as the iPhone will listen for the phrase "Hey Siri" if it's plugged in.

The bottom line is, the Echo is just a glorified smartphone with a bluetooth speaker attached to it. There's every been some speculation that the Echo is just reusing parts from the unsold Amazon Fire Phones, which haven't exactly been flying off the shelves. Still, it's an interesting idea, especially if it were to be integrated into other home automation systems in the future.

Linq Smart Vents on Kickstarter

The results of home automation are glamorous. They make our homes seem like something out of a sci-fi novel, adapting to our every whim and anticipating our every move. The actual pieces that create that effect however, are often anything but glamorous. Strange sensors embedded in walls, wires running every which way. Light switches, door hardware, it's all very boring stuff we tend to try not to think about. And there's a new home automation product on Kickstarter that's going one step further: The Linq Smart Vents.

These devices aim to replace the vents attached to your AC and heating system. A very un-glamorous part that we never think about. But, like many of the stranger home automation devices out there, what they do is really interesting.

All AC vents have switches that allow you to open and close them, giving each room of your house more or less air. In my house, we typically use that vent once or twice a year, maximum. It's kind of a pain to adjust, and I usually never think about it. The Linq system can also open and close, allowing more or less air into a room. But it can do it via a battery powered motor, controlled by a hub. And it can do it automatically.

Why would you want this? It may not be obvious at first, but think about it. You're only ever using one or two rooms of your home at once. Yet your AC system is heating or cooling the entire house. Why should it? That's wasted money. Linq has built in motion and temperature sensors that can detect which rooms you're actively using at any given moment, directing airflow to those rooms while cutting off the others. It focuses your AC's efforts, and based on their studies, saves you a boatload of cash.

It had better save you cash, because it's going to cost quite a bit to get into this system. A package on Kickstarter with just four cents is $350, with each extra vent after that costing another $50. But you have to admit, for such a weird part of your home, it's pretty darn cool, no?