Venstar is giving the good old thermostat a techie makeover with a new Skyport WiFi Key for its ColorTouch residential thermostat. The Skyport WiFi Key allows the thermostats to connect to the company's Skyport Cloud Services, which lets users remotely monitor and control their thermostats via Venstar's mobile app. The new cloud access is compatible with the most devices, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch as well as BlackBerry and Android devices. It can also be accessed over the web via Macs and PCs.
Read The Full Story
- Why I Think Apple Will, Indeed, Launch A Television
- Diablo III Review Part I: Your Quest Begins
- PureView: The Tech Behind Nokia’s Salvation
- Which Company Has Contributed More to Gaming: Sony or Nintendo?
- Nokia 808 PureView Explored: Hands-on Samples
- Men in Black 3 VFX pros describe “an onion” of imagination
- HTC EVO 4G LTE vs HTC One X
- SlashGear 101: What is So.cl?
‘Home Automation’ Stories
Venstar’s home thermostat boasts touchscreen, WiFi, and mobile app
Twine and Pebble reveal “Internet of things” on your wrist
Two of the most successful Kickstarter projects of all time, the Twine internet-of-things gadget and the Pebble e-paper smartwater, will work together, it has been announced. Thanks to cooperation between the two teams, real-world alerts from Twine will be flagged up on the Pebble watch, such as when someone knocks on your door or if your washing machine is leaking.
Read The Full Story
QGate GSM and RF home automation demonstrated
A company called QGate is showing off its new home automation devices that use GSM and RF to communicate. What you get when you buy the QGate system is a European-style outlet box that plugs into an outlet, with its own outlet on the front allowing you to control things from anywhere you can get a web connection using an app. The outlet kit sells for about €50.
Read The Full Story
AT&T Digital Life home automation Hands-on
The folks at AT&T have taken on home automation with a fury this week, showing off their new AT&T Digital Life system with a pack of iPads in a New Orleans home that's become fully controlled by the user. The user of course is you, the homeowner, and the way you're going to do it is with a fully customizable application (and environment) that AT&T will be making available in the near future. This system currently works on the iPad and can be seen in the hands-on video we've got here - witness the next level of fully integrated wireless home technology made simple, courtesy of your favorite big blue and orange phone company.
Read The Full Story
Concept capacitive tech unlocks doors with a swipe
Most of us associate capacitive touch sensors with the screens on our smartphones or tablets, but the technology can be applied to other fields as well. The Touché project illustrates this perfectly, integrating a more contextual method of touch sensitivity into everyday objects like door handles, tables and even water or a person's body. One of the most interesting demonstrations of the technology behind Touché includes setting a door handle to different states by grasping it in different ways.
Read The Full Story
AT&T Digital Life takes home automation mainstream
AT&T has waded into the connected home security market, launching AT&T Digital Life, a web-connected digital lifestyle and safety system offering control over HVAC, alarms, appliances and more. Set to begin domestic trials in Atlanta and Dallas this summer, AT&T Digital Life uses wired and wireless internet-enabled sensors, power controls and cameras to turn computers, tablets and smartphones into remote controls and security monitoring stations for the user's home.
Read The Full Story
Microsoft testing home-automation with HomeOS
Sometimes companies like to give us a nice little peek behind the curtain to show us what they’re working on, and this time it's Microsoft's turn. The company has published a white paper on its Research site detailing its method of home automation using HomeOS. Devices like smartphones, laptops, lights, and air conditioners would be treated as individual peripherals connected to a centralized gateway.
Read The Full Story
Nest updates smart thermostat with new features
Nest, the company behind the smart thermostat of the same name, has issued an update that brings several new software features. The company has been listening to customer feedback, and designed the update around some of the requests. The new features are aimed at saving you money, in line with the product's mantra of energy efficiency and ease of use.
Read The Full Story
Qualcomm Atheros joins Internet of Things with tiny comms chip
Qualcomm Atheros has jumped onto the Internet of Things bandwagon with a new chipset, the AR4100P, intended to give your washing machine, lighting and just about anything else a direct line to the web. Adding WiFi 802.11n to the existing AR4100, the new chipset has its own IPv4/IPv6 TCP/IP stack and promises a straightforward and affordable route for manufacturers to get their hardware hooked up to a smart home system.
Read The Full Story
ThinkFlood motorized in-wall iPad dock hands-on
In-wall iPad docks are neat, but motorized in-wall iPad docks take some beating for tech-cred. Home automation and distributed media specialist ThinkFlood is appealing to our geekier nature with its new, electrically-powered wall mounting kit for the iPad: simply press the button and the cradle opens out to allow you to slot your tablet in place. Check out our hands-on impressions - and a video demo - after the cut.
Read The Full Story
AT&T Digital Life home automation revealed and detailed
This week the folks at AT&T are coming on strong with a home automation solution for not only the US market, but the rest of the world as well. Targeting international service providers with their own unique platform for remote monitoring and automation, AT&T is letting the world know that they've got exactly the solution anyone might want for keeping an eye on their home outside the home with their own smart devices and wired computers. This solution is set to entice not only end users, but providers who will aim to rebrand the service for their own and offer up multiple forms of home automation for their customers.
Read The Full Story
MOTHER artificial intelligence forces nerds to do the chores… or else
If you've ever been inside a dormitory full of computer science undergraduates, you know what horrors come of young men free of responsibility. To help combat the lack of homemaking skills in nerds everywhere, a group of them banded together to create MOTHER, a combination of home automation, basic artificial intelligence and gentle nagging designed to keep a domicile running at peak efficiency. And also possibly kill an entire crew of space truckers if they should come in contact with a xenomorphic alien - but that code module hasn't been installed yet.
Read The Full Story
REVIEWS
VIDEOS
- POPULAR STORIES THIS WEEK
- MacBook Pro 2012 model release tipped by price drop
- "I want you to run Motorola. Can you let me know by tonight?" asks Google CEO
- iPhone 5 and iPod touch panels leaked
- IBM blocks Siri on its networks
- iPhone 5 supply purchases tipped for 2012
- IBM blocks Dropbox and iCloud as well as Siri
- Activision/Bungie legal documents oust potential PS4, Xbox 720 dates
- Absinthe 2.0 iOS 5.1.1 jailbreak released for iPad, iPhone and iPod
- RECENT COMMENTS
