TP-Link has a new mesh router on the scene, and it seems to do a little bit of everything. Today the company revealed the Deco M9 Plus, a tri-band router that can cover the same area with fewer nodes than previous releases in the Deco line. Beyond that, the Deco M9 Plus has a few tricks up its sleeve as well.
While Microsoft's Cortana struggles to keep up with Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant in the growing smart assistant market, it's still making effort to stay relevant. Its latest feature is integration with IFTTT, the platform that lets users connect hundreds of different apps and services, creating automated processes through the use of "triggers" and "actions."
Even before the whole smart home and IoT market exploded, there was the Roomba. Looking more like a squished trash can, iRobot’s flagship product defied your expectations of robots and vacuum cleaners. But just because you came first doesn’t exactly make you the clear winner. iRobot has, in fact, been trying to catch up with the increasingly connected homes, and stumbling along way. And what better way to say “connected to the Internet” than with IFTTT automation.
Today NVIDIA SHIELD's latest update brought with it Google Assistant in full effect. The results are much like we saw and experienced earlier this year at CES 2017. This means "OK Google" Google Assistant support - along with NVIDIA's implementation of the full-on latest version of Google's vision of the ideal smart TV environment using Android. This is also the "first-ever hands-free access to an Assistant for TV" - so says NVIDIA.
IFTTT has built a reputation for itself as the glue that can hold the Internet of Things and the cloud together, and now it's opening up its most advanced features for regular users. IFTTT - or If This, Then That - is effectively a cloud-based hub for connected devices and services that might not normally work together. With its Applets, users can hook up their Nest thermostat to their Gmail account and get a notification if the temperature drops, for instance, or flash their Hue lights if their favorite team scores.
Pizza company Domino's has yet again tapped modern technology to improve the pizza-ordering process, this time announcing a new partnership with IFTTT, making it the first-ever restaurant brand to get on the platform. To kick things off, Domino's has announced some IFTTT Applets able to work with the company's Pizza Tracker to adjust smart homes in optimal ways (for pizza delivery). Do you have sprinklers on outside, for example? They'll automatically be turned off when Tracker says the delivery is underway.
Mayfield Robotics' Kuri robot companion may not have launched yet, but it's already getting smarter, adding facial detection as well as IFTTT integration. The personable robot was announced at CES 2017 back in January, a Bosch-backed project to put a friendly AI in the modern connected home. Now, the ways in which Kuri will be able to interact with both people and its environment have been improved.
Earlier this year, toy-maker Sphero debuted the Star Wars Force Band wearable, making the previously released robotic BB-8 even cooler than it already was. Basically, the wristband allowed the small droid to be controlled with hand movements. Now Sphero has one-upped itself once again, introducing the ability to pair the Force Band with various smart home apps and appliances, all powered by IFTTT.
Just a few days ago, Microsoft fully launched Flow, which was its own take on the automation platform market but with an eye towards the workplace. IFTTT, who can be credited as having popularized the idea, isn’t taking things sitting down. But rather than aiming its guns specifically at the enterprise, it is trying to do one better. It is evolving its “Recipes” metaphor into “Applets”, and, while doing so, is also targeting enterprise partners, but not to the exclusion of regular consumers and power users.
It seems that Microsoft is now getting into the habit (again) of creating new products that can be seen as a rivaling copy of a popular service. Skype Teams, for example, is set to kill Slack. Microsoft Flow, which has been in preview for quite some time now, is aiming its guns at IFTTT. But while IFTTT has the advantage of popularity, age, and non-exclusivity, Microsoft Flow is going to hit hard in one area where IFTTT might have trouble settling in: the enterprise.
Google has set about taking over our abodes this morning with a full reveal of the device called Google Home. This is the device we saw briefly earlier this year around Google I/O 2016, now coming from Google in a release-level manner. It doesn't look all that unlike a candle, or a wine glass, or a ... you know what. This system connects with a number of services right out the gate, including YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, Google Play Music, TuneIn, and iHeartRadio.
IFTTT may be the glue for the Internet of Things, but now the useful service-linking platform is going embedded, with deep app integration making cooking up smart home recipes even more straightforward. IFTTT - or "If This Then That" - has announced an update today that sees its recipes embedded into third-party apps from Ring, Automatic, and more.