As initially revealed by the FCC back in November and formally disclosed this week, the upcoming Wyze Band is described as: a wrist-wearable smart home assistant and activity tracker. Wyze Band will allow you to control Wyze devices with a tap and using Alexa Built-in, any number of Alexa-enabled devices. It also tracks steps, heart … Read more
As the upcoming ecobee smart camera inches closer to a presumed fall launch, additional details and our old friend the blurry cam pic have emerged. I’m told the new camera is but one element of whole home monitoring. Indeed, we know a door/window contact sensor is in the pipeline. But will we see a full-on … Read more
If you’ve been following along, you know ecobee is working on a variety of new products. While the company will expand their reach into the smart home later this year with (at least) an indoor camera and contact sensor, an updated ecobee thermostat and sensor is expected any day now. And, thanks to Lowe’s, all … Read more
Alexa Routines have become increasingly powerful and Amazon just upped the virtual hub ante with sunrise/sunset triggers. As shown in the video, we can use those ever shifting times to put a variety of smart home devices into action. In my case, I’m migrating three less elegant Hue lighting routines into two Alexa routines given … Read more
Announced many months ago, the first cut of Alexa Guard has finally arrived. The gist of Alexa Guard is to centralize select monitoring functions withing a single area, utilizing the traditional home/away security system approach and bringing Amazon closer to our dream of a virtual hub … that Siri hasn’t quite managed to achieve. Initial … Read more
ecobee intends to round out their smart home lineup with an indoor camera. While details are light, given Amazon investment and the existing product line, we can assume the ecobee camera will feature Alexa integration … if not outright control via its own mic, as those amber lights pictured in the company render up top … Read more
My Twitter followers likely encountered some snark in regards to Roku’s initial Google Assistant integration — with the two primary complaints being that I could only link up a single Roku device, despite a household of several, and Google’s frequent target device confusion, given the nonsensical responses that I don’t posses a Chromecast. TRYING to control Roku … Read more
Ikea Smartshades are here! Well “here” as in some European stores with broader availability expected February 2nd — hopefully that includes the US, although prior reports indicated our availability would come later in the spring. In any event, we now know sizes, prices, and mechanics. There are two lines of grey Ikea smart shades, one … Read more