Showing posts with label Smart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Smart. Show all posts

Thursday, 16 April 2015

Home Automation System Seed Labs Launches Silvair Control To Make Your Lightbulbs Smart

Dormi Turns Android Smartphones Or Tablets Into A Video Baby MonitorAs our homes becoming increasingly wired (or unwired) it’s important for our teakettles to talk to our fridges and, potentially, for both to gang up on our vacuums. But how? They can now use something called the Silvair Control from Seed Labs.
We last met up with Seed Labs last November when they showed me a working system to control electronics in the home using an open and very usable chip interface. That interface is now commercially ready and we can expect to see the product inside of appliances before too long. The Control, however, is something else entirely. Shaped like the Nest thermostat, the Control is actually a removable button/dial that you can carry from room to room to control lighting and appliances.
“Silvair Control is the world’s first fully configurable, gesture­-driven, wireless controller that lets customers manage their everyday appliances whether that be lamps, shades, and garage doors or other household and commercial products,” said co-founder Rafal Han. His cofounder, Szymon Slupik, is an expert in “connected technology.”
The Bluetooth-powered device can stick to your wall or you can put it on any surface. You can tap it, slide it, and spin it to activate various parts of your home automation system and you can dock it when not in use. They’ve raised $3.3 million to build out the product and they are already placing their specialized chips in OEM products around the world including Freemont, CA-based Soraa who is using the technology in their connected LED lamps.
scaled.Silvair_Kvis_2 scaled.Silvair_Kvis_1 scaled.Silvair_smart sensor cmf 222 scaled.Silvair_Kvis_3 scaled.Silvair_Front_page_1DSC01904_edit  View Slideshow Previous Next Exit
“We’ve built the unique architecture where devices form a native, flexible system and are capable of talking directly to each other,” said Han. “The devices can be easily configured with just a smartphone app. The separation of the control plane from the power plane makes a foundation for fully configurable ecosystem.”
When I saw the product a few months ago I was impressed by the fire-and-forget nature of the connection software. Each object connects to the controller app automatically with no pairing, a feature that will impress folks who have tried to connect to Bluetooth light bulbs in the past

Saturday, 28 March 2015

This Week On The TS Gadgets Podcast: Smartphone Stuff And Smart Home Stuff

In Final Verdict, Jury Rules Against Pao On All Four Claims In Ellen Pao Vs. Kleiner PerkinsIt was a big week for phones and homes.
John Biggs has been reviewing the new Galaxy S6 Edge from Samsung, while the HTC One M9 recently went on sale in certain markets. And speaking of things that just went on sale, Indiegogo darling Canary recently went live in retail stores like Best Buy and Verizon Wireless, as well as on Amazon. Meanwhile, August Lock raised a huge round of funding to make your door lock smarter.
We discuss all this and more on this very week’s episode of the TC Gadgets Podcast featuring Matt Burns, Jordan Crook, and John Biggs.
We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcasts every Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific. And feel free to check out the TechCrunch Gadgets Flipboard magazine right here.
Click here to download an MP3 of this show.
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Tuesday, 17 March 2015

The “Momento Pearl” Smart Jewelry Offers A Digital Upgrade To The Keepsake Locket

Y Combinator Talks Numbers: 842 Companies Funded To Date, 23% With Women Founders In Current Batch“Smart” jewelry today largely includes functional gadgets designed for health tracking functions, or those offering some sort of alerting feature, like rings that vibrate when you receive texts or calls. But now, a new piece of smart jewelry called the “Momento Pearl” is combining technology with sentiment and emotion by allowing the jewelry’s giver to record a digital memory to a pearl necklace, ring or earrings, which is then accessed by tapping the pearl to an NFC-enabled smartphone.
Historically, giving jewelry as a gift has been thought of being an act of love, and the Momento Pearl is no different. The idea here is to create a line of interactive gems, beginning with pearls but eventually expanding into other gemstones, which function as something of an upgrade to the traditional keepsake locket.
While in the past, people would tuck small photos into hinged lockets as a way of keeping their loved ones close, the Momento Pearl allows you to record and save digital photos, as well as videos, voice recordings, text messages and more into hardware embedded inside a hard-carved white freshwater or black Tahitian pearl set in sterling silver or 14K white or yellow gold.

The concept for this modern-day twist on the old-fashioned locket was dreamed up by longtime jewelry designer, Chi Huynh, whose company Galatea is known best for its carved line of pearls, created by their own patented and proprietary process. Those same pearls are what are featured here, except they’ve been upgraded with NFC technology and 500 MB of storage space (or 1 GB if the company exceeds its Kickstarter goal.)
The company already has the technology developed and ready to ship, but is raising funds on Kickstarter more to generate awareness for its new technology, which it’s also selling direct to retailers. Notably, the price points on the Kickstarter campaign, which offers rewards starting at just $95, are much lower than those for the same items Galatea is selling to retailers.
Retailers will sell the items for price points of around $400 in their own stores, the company tells us. Several Kickstarter items can instead be bought for less half that.

The way the technology works involves the combination of NFC inside the pearl and a mobile app designed for Android smartphones. Unfortunately, this smart jewelry is Android-only for now, because Apple has yet to open up its iPhone’s NFC component for use outside of Apple Pay. (If that occurs, though, Momento Pearl will expand to support iOS devices as well.)
After you buy the jewelry, you tap it to your Android smartphone, which will launch the app’s page on the Google Play store. You install the app to your phone and open it, then begin filling it with your digital memories by tapping on buttons for adding photos, text, voice recordings, web links or videos. When you’ve finished uploading, you tap the pearl to the phone again to save your content to the jewelry item. The app’s data is also synced with the cloud in the event the jewelry becomes lost, the memories it included are not.
The jewelry’s owner can set one of the items to be the “featured” memory, meaning the one that plays immediately when tapped to a smartphone. However, the recipient, too, can share the account associated with the app so they cab swap out featured memories as they choose by logging into the app. This way, the gift giver can also “update” the jewelry with new memories, by uploading more content into the app for the recipient to choose to rotate through over time.
Because the jewelry relies on NFC technology inside of Bluetooth, the necklace, rings and earrings don’t require charging, nor do they need batteries, making them a bit more practical than a number of smart jewelry pieces on the market today. They’re also waterproof, so you can swim with them or wear them in the shower.
While the current line of jewelry offered includes only pearls, which can sometimes be thought of as a bit old-fashioned, their hand-carved look at least gives them a more modern feel. And there’s also one piece called the “Beauty Inside” that’s unique – it’s a hand-carved Tahitian Galatea pearl which includes a gemstone grown inside.
Additionally, the company says that now they have the technology working, the plan is to introduce it into a range of jewelry items in the future, including a variety of other colored gemstones to start.
The Momento Pearl is raising $50,000 on Kickstarter with promises to begin shipping next month. So far, just over $16,000 has been raised with 11 days to go. Most of the items on Kickstarter are in the hundred to few hundred dollar range, though there are high-end items available for $1,425 and up as well.

Thursday, 12 March 2015

Apple Explores A Smart Dock For iPhone That Could Also Act As A HomeKit Hub

SignalFX Emerges From Stealth To Modernize Cloud Application MonitoringApple has a new patent application published by the USPTO (via AppleInsider) that describes an iPhone outfitted for the new Lightning-sporting models. Apple has offered iPhone docks in the past, which used to have RCA and 3.5mm audio passthrough for stereo connectivity. This new patent could indeed offer audio output, as is mentioned in the title of the application, but it also includes options like wireless communication, proximity sensors, a touch-sensitive display and support for also connecting to and charging accessories, including (though it isn’t mentioned specifically by name) the Apple Watch.
The patent application, first filed for in 2013, could help explain why Apple hasn’t yet released a dock for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, if it’s working on something more full-featured with extended support for all Lightning devices. Of course, it’s equally possible that Apple was more content to leave that side of the business in the hands of third-party accessory makers, and this patent, like so many others, only represents an effort to get legal protection for an idea dreamed up by an engineer that won’t become a real product.
Still, there are certain conditions that make this an attractive possibility for Apple to pursue: One is the Apple Watch, and the other is HomeKit. As described in the patent, the new dock invention would allow for accessory charging in addition to the main iPhone docking, depending on the final configuration, and could offer induction-based charging methods for both accessories and future iPhones with that feature built-in. The dock would also be able to communicate with connected appliances and home accessories thanks to its built-in Wi-Fi.
That could help it become a central hub for use with HomeKit, the framework that Apple is using to make connected hardware and Internet of Things devices controllable via Siri and voice commands. It had been rumored that a refreshed Apple TV device could act as that central hub in the future, but a dock might make more sense and have a wider appeal for iPhone owners.
Other variable features for the dock include possible LED display indicators to show charge level, audio mode and active data connections, for instance, as well as proximity sensors that can be used to trigger display features when a user’s hand comes close. Finally, the application also mentions support for various audio and video output capabilities.
Apple probably doesn’t need to make this gadget to get consumers interested in Apple Watch and HomeKit, but if both of those take off in a big way, it becomes a much easier sell for shoppers who are wholly invested in the Apple ecosystem. Like any patent or patent application, it’s definitely not a product roadmap, but it is an interesting possibility given the current slate of Apple hardware offerings.

Tuesday, 3 March 2015

Cloze Debuts A Smart, Personal Assistant App For Managing Your Professional Relationships

That’s A Wrap On The Atlanta And Boston TC Meetups!Cloze today is rolling out a new application aimed at business professionals. It promises a smarter view of your contacts by allowing you to automatically track email messages, phone calls, meetings, notes, social updates and more in a single application on iPhone, iPad and the web. The idea is to offer individuals whose business requires them to maintain relationships an easy way to receive reminders to reach out to those most important to them, before those relationships fade.
The company, as you may recall, had earlier introduced an email management app that worked to sort emails for you, based on the priority of your relationship with the email senders. That app was targeted more at consumers, however.
According to Cloze co-founder Alex Coté, what the company learned over the past couple of years since the original app’s debut was that competing with consumer-facing mobile email apps shouldn’t be its core focus.
“Relationship management was a category that we set out from the beginning to work on,” he says. “It’s something that [Cloze co-founder Dan Foody] and I had, which is why we raised money to solve this problem. Information is really spread all over the place – on emails, on social media, in CRM systems, in phone calls, in notes…how do you get it all together,” he asks.
agenda-6 social-6 company-6 contact-6 reader-6  View Slideshow Previous Next Exit
With the relaunch of Cloze, the app is moving away from being an email client of sorts, and instead is meant to function more as a tool that lets you track your contacts and your interactions in a variety of ways.
It automatically pulls in information from your email accounts, calendar, social media, phone call logs and notes – including those stored on Evernote, as well as documents exchanged and interactions on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
Now a freemium application, the free version limits users to three email accounts, and essentially offers the basic “relationship prioritization” functionality of Cloze’s prior version.
But paying users will have access to a host of other features, too, including phone-call logging, unlimited email account support, contextual meeting info and updates, document tracking, Evernote integration, business card scanning, stay-in-touch and follow-up reminders, search and filtering features and more.
Cloze also offers an “Agenda” view where you can see all your meetings, reminders, follow-ups and alerts in one place, and it shoots out a daily briefing email to keep you on top of your upcoming day and to alert you to things you may have missed from the day before.
followup
The company has been testing the premium version for several months with a number of testers, and says that early feedback has been promising. Its users, who include professionals like real estate agents, independent lawyers, wealth managers and other small business owners, were quickly converting from the free to paid version during trials. The company has around 300,000 users who have been using the free version of Cloze, but isn’t offering data on paid users at this point since the app is only becoming available to the public today.
Starting now, Cloze users can subscribe to the premium features in the new app for $19.99 per user per month or $159.99 per user per year – pricing which decidedly moves Cloze out of the consumer space.
Cloze has only raised $1.2 million in seed funding to date, having relied on its other business, a tool for team sharing called Circulate.it, for revenue. That service starts at $9 per month and goes up to $99 per month on the high end, where the company works with several bigger clients including banks and PR firms, for example.
Explains Coté, the company eventually sees the two products coming together a bit more, as Circulate.it could serve as a way to introduce Cloze into the larger enterprise. In fact, Cloze is already thinking about a “team” version of the new Cloze service that would be aimed at bigger businesses and include things like Salesforce integration, he says.
Cloze is available now on iTunes.

Friday, 13 February 2015

British Gas Buys UK Smart Home Pioneer AlertMe For $100M

The connected home may still be a distant idea for most average consumers, but in the meantime the technology is becoming big business. Today, British Gas announced it will buy AlertMe, a developer of platforms for running various domestic

Google Glass May Be On Shaky Ground, But Sony’s Showing Off Its New Smart Eyeware

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Thursday, 12 February 2015

CliniCloud’s Smart Stethoscope And Thermometer Lets Doctors Check Your Vitals From The Cloud

We are getting that much closer to building the doctor’s office of the future, right within our homes today. Digital health diagnostic tools startup CliniCloud has launched a line of Bluetooth-connected stethoscopes and thermometers that enable consumers to check their own vitals and have a doctor access them via the cloud.
These digital devices can track things like your temperature and heart rate and send a history of these  recordings to an on-demand physician. The physician can then give a diagnosis without patients having to leave their homes.

Tago Arc Smart Bracelet Blends E-Ink And NFC

From gizmos to trinkets: the era of smart jewelry is upon us, with makers and businesses of all stripes and sizes busy mixing electronics and sensors with

Wednesday, 11 February 2015

Urban Engines Takes The Power Of Its Transit Platform To Consumers With A Smart Offline Maps App

As a part-time urban planning nerd, I love visualizations of buses, trains and cars pulsating through cities. Now with more data available through smartphones, emergent logistics platforms like Uber and eventually Internet-connected and self-driving cars, it’s inevitable that software will become indispensable in managing and making mass transit more efficient.
That’s the bet of a Silicon Valley-based startup called Urban Engines that was founded by some very, very longtime former Googlers and a Stanford computer science professor named Balaji Prabhakar. Initially, they built out software to help cities like Singapore and Sao Paulo manage their public transit systems. But now they’re moving forward with a consumer-mapping app that works quickly when you’re offline.
Why, might you ask, would you need an additional mapping app when Google already provides one?
Well, Urban Engines’ app doesn’t rely on mobile Internet when you’re underground in the subway and it also has a few UI flourishes that make the experience faster than the regular Google Maps app. For one, when you boot it up, you don’t have to type in a destination; you can just drag the center of the map to wherever you’re going and it will generate different routes for you automatically.
Urban Engines has created offline maps for 10 different cities in North America, including New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver and Washington, D.C.
There’s also an X-ray mode that overlays a map over the streets and helps you figure out where you’re going.
Doing this is harder than it sounds. The 30-person company, which is backed by an undisclosed amount of funding from Eric Schmidt, Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Ram Shriram, SV Angel and others, has put together its mapping solution from OpenStreetMaps and other sources for public transit data. They’re competing against the 3,000 people who work on Google Maps.

It’s Time To Rethink Our Smart Things

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