Amazon Web Services had a really bad Sunday AM. Specifically, resources in my ‘hood were sucking wind… Yeah, Amazon AWS hosted in Virginia has been struggling… http://t.co/o46sSQKTpd pic.twitter.com/mjXf7mTyaF — Dave Zatz (@davezatz) September 20, 2015 Amongst the large number of websites and cloud services inaccessible this AM, was Google’s Nest. Despite being a Google company, and … Read more
While Belkin’s WeMo is largely a closed smarthome ecosystem, with a questionable history in terms of performance and security, I found $40 for three “connected” bulbs and mini hub too good a deal to pass up. So, at the very least, the two lamps I have on old school mechanical timers will be getting an wireless upgrade (and CFL > … Read more
As promised (to me personally, natch), all Hue HomeKit details will be revealed this month… and they’ve started trickling out a bit earlier than Philips had anticipated. By way of two overseas leaks, we get a sense of the updated Hue bridge. The squarer, more sophisticated-looking unit will be available as a standalone purchase, for possibly 60 euros, enabling folks to … Read more
The Kevo smart lock, which we heartily endorse, breaks free from the phone today with the announcement of Moto360 support. Soon you can lock or unlock your doors in the presence of your Bluetooth LE Android Wear. For folks like me, who frequently stroll around the neighborhood without my smartphone, and those more exercise-oriented this seems like a pretty … Read more
By way of the FCC, we see August is primed to shortly expand their lineup with a Smart Keypad. Whatever that is. While we loved the aesthetics of their original Yves Behar-designed smart lock, we ultimately preferred Kevo to August — choosing functionality over form. Yet, August appears well-funded with a stellar team… so we do expect … Read more
In other Amazon Echo news, the companion iPhone app has been rechristened. Where “Amazon Echo” once lived, I now find “Amazon Alexa” — curious, no? CNET’s John Falcone reasonably wonders if this signals additional Alexa-capable hardware in the pipeline. Indeed, Amazon has opened the voice-powered platform up to third parties and this might be a nice, centralized … Read more
Drop that zero and get with a hero. Amazon Echo is about to link up with Samsung SmartThings – a more reliable home automation platform with presumably better long term prospects compared to Wink, a prior Echo integration. We’re excited to announce that SmartThings is now compatible with Amazon Echo! By starting sentences with “Alexa,” you can play … Read more
By way of the FCC, we learn something that looks like a third generation Nest Theromostat is en route… with 5GHz joining the party. Now I can’t say for certain the unnamed Nest device is another learning thermostat. But the round profile, with label on back, identified as model ZQAT30 (versus the 2nd gen’s ZQAT20) sure seems … Read more