Wemo's WiFi Smart Dimmer light switch is gaining Apple HomeKit support, with a new update bypassing the need for a hub to integrate with Apple's smart home system. Launched back in 2017, the WiFi Smart Dimmer is intended to replace a traditional light switch in the wall, and thus enable remote-control access to the light that it operates.
The holiday shopping season is coming, and Google has slipped into pole position for smart displays with the new Home Hub. Latest embodiment of the Google Assistant, the Home Hub is special as much for what it left out as what it can do. Read on for three reasons we think it'll be one of the top gifts for 2018.
The Google Home Hub is a big idea in a compact package. Bucking the trend of larger and larger smart displays, this latest container for the varied talents of the Google Assistant occupies a smaller footprint than most of its rivals demand. The size - and the competitive $149 price tag - may be diminutive, but the Home Hub’s ambitions are not.
Video doorbells are increasingly our first point of contact with the modern smart home, and now SimpliSafe is joining the party with its new Video Doorbell Pro. Designed to integrate with a SimpliSafe security and home automation system, the new camera allows for two-way audio as well as getting a glimpse of who is standing at your door.
For the past two years or so, Google’s events have revolved around the themes of AI and, in ways consumers can understand, Google Assistant. The recent Made by Google event, a.k.a. Pixel event, was no different. Yes, Google brought out a couple of new devices and bundles, but the one thing that connects them all together isn’t Android, much less Chrome OS. Yes, it’s Google Assistant. And guess what? Google didn’t have time to say everything it wanted to. So here are some of the things that are still coming in next weeks and months that aim to make your devices smarter so that you can be too.
Google’s launch of the Home Hub smart display isn’t just a one-off product launch. It’s actually a cog in a machine that’s now starting to swing into full gear. That machine is Google’s Connected Home, a.k.a. smart home, thrust and it is the unspoken underlying theme of Google’s event earlier today. Because what better than a new Pixel 3 or Pixel 3 XL phone to run the updated Google Home app that will put you in touch with over 10,000 connected devices in your home.
I honestly thought the Google Home Hub was going to be bigger. Like, much bigger. Significantly bigger. With Amazon's second-generation Echo Show cranking the touchscreen up to 10-inches, and Facebook's Portal+ even bigger at 15-inches, Google's smart display is oddly compact.
The new Echo Show 2nd Gen finds a far more powerful Amazon Alexa waiting for it, with none of the touchscreen uncertainty of the original. Back when Amazon first launched the Echo Show, its first smart speaker with a display, few were convinced that Alexa skills would translate from voice-only. A little over a year later, the new Echo Show is still $229.99 but faces a whole new set of skills - and a whole new set of challenges.
With just a week left before Google's big hardware event of the year, all the leaks and even official teasers are falling into place. Unless there is actually no notch on the Pixel 3 XL, there might be nothing to surprise us when the actual reveals come. Especially thanks to leaks like this that leave no stone unturned, even product bundles that seem to offer nothing new until you take a closer look.
August and Yale have released a new range of connected smart locks, delivering both smartphone and auto-unlock control, as well as a keypad for PIN access. The Assure Lock Connected by August line-up combines Yale's Assure Lock range with a new August module, which makes the electronic lock smart.
Never has the humble potato been so smart - or so readily cooked - as inside the Amazon Basics Microwave. Now blessed with Alexa support, what's probably the strangest product from Amazon's massive gush of connected gadgets today might seem, on the face of it, a gimmick. In reality, though, it's arguably the most important of them all.
Amazon is holding a surprise event in Seattle today, with a host of Alexa-based devices expected to break cover in advance of Google's big Pixel event next month. It's the latest salvo in Amazon's smart assistant line-up, which leaks have suggested will expand into connected appliances as well as more capable multimedia devices.