consumer electronics

Home automation winners at Showstoppers


A joule of an idea.

The essence of genius is turning complex and confusing concepts into elegant simplicity. The Energy Joule manages the trick of taking your home's energy usage, benchmarking it against often byzantine electric utility rate pricing and distilling the result down to a simple glowing light.

Ambient Devices sells it to electric utilities, who in turn provide it to their customers. The idea is to give instant, easy to understand information about what it's costing to keep the lights and everything else on, so consumers can keep their bills down and utilities can spread out their load.… More

Lowes executes a home automation play

8 January 2013 by Steve Blum
, , ,


Presumptive retailing.

“It's our fault – technology and business models – we just haven't gotten it right,” said Kevin Meagher, vice president and general manager for the smart home segment at Lowes. The problem isn't consumers, who readily accept automation. “It's in our cars and none of us would buy one without it. The hurdle is getting it into the home,” he said.

Meagher was speaking at the Parks Associates Connections Summit at CES this afternoon.… More

Home automation and wearable computing hits at Pepcom

7 January 2013 by Steve Blum
, , , , ,

The FitBit is the bit that fits inside the wristband.

Along with Alabama, Pepcom was a winner tonight. The second of the three major press group gropes at CES, it featured a tailgate party theme and the Notre Dame/Alabama game on big screens. Nearly 200 companies set up small displays at the MGM Grand, showing new products and new brand positioning.

Nexia was in the latter category. It's a re-branding of the Schlage Link home automation system.… More

CES Unveiled 2013 highlights

6 January 2013 by Steve Blum
, , , , , ,


Now your plants can talk to you.

Three different approaches to home automation and a sleek wearable video eyepiece and camera stood out from from the crowd tonight at CES Unveiled. More than 70 companies demonstrated new products at the annual pre-show press event. Mostly, it was headphones, speakers, big displays, mobile phone cases and various other accessories.

The new OLPC XO 4 tablet/computer was a delight, more about that here.

The other standouts were…

… More

Samsung ready to be crowned King of the Elephants

The “four elephants” of the mobile electronics industry – if not the entire tech world – are Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung, as Tae Hea Nahm, founding general partner of Storm Ventures put it at a recent Wireless Communications Alliance event. They’re prepared to do “whatever it takes to win.”

Samsung is positioned to take honors as lead bull at CES next week, if only by default. Apple and Microsoft won’t be there. Google is relying on partners like LG and, maybe, Intel to build buzz.… More

Three things you won't see at CES 2013

Rocking with Jonney.

No computer companies. Ten years ago, they were the stars of the show. The final keynote by Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer last year marked the end of their run. (Apple was so far ahead of the curve they stopped showing up before they stopped being a computer company).

I’ll miss ASUS’s Jonney Shih and even Intel’s Paul Otellini. They had interesting ideas to share, and said it well. On the other hand, some won’t be missed.… More

Not much difference between airline passengers and a bag of potatoes


This is your captain speaking.

Good news from Boeing, just in time for the holiday flying madness. With the growing popularity of on-board WiFi, engineers there needed to figure out how it propagates in an airline cabin.

There’s no mathematical model for predicting what happens to WiFi signals when you have a few hundred people packed together inside of a metal tube. So they came up with a testing protocol.

Boeing is proud of the fact that it only requires about ten hours to complete the series of tests.… More

Opportunity to leave consumers to their own devices

We’re in a world where it’s increasingly assumed that you’re carrying a screen all the time – tablet, smart phone or laptop. Maybe you’ll even have Apple’s long rumored iWatch on your wrist.

Westjet, a Canadian bargain airline, is thinking about ripping out the entertainment systems from its planes, saving 500 kg in weight and who knows how much in upkeep, and replacing it with a WiFi-based system that streams video to passengers’ BYOD of choice.… More

Oh, you mean a Maxwell Smart home

“Chaos is an opportunity for people like me,” said Tom Kadlec, one of the founders of The Homeworks Group. They do the hard work of integrating and managing home automation systems for about a thousand subscribers. Both he and his partner have electrical engineering degrees, which is great for them but not so good for the home handyman who majored in, say, political science.

Come quick, 99. I’m surrounded by ARMed phones.

Protocol agnostic and easy to use: home automation needs heavy helpings of both if it’s to ever find its secret sauce.… More

Qualcomm's consumer services business going to the dogs

Tagg is a mobile pet tracker and promising veterinary diagnostic tool, offered by Snaptracs, a Qualcomm subsidiary. The hardware costs $100, with ongoing service at $8 per month for the first pet and and $1 for each additional one.

Tagg on a not-so-lively dog

That eight bucks gets you a text message whenever your dog strays from home, with GPS feeds to help you find him. Or your cat, if it’s one of the few big enough to handle the weight and tolerant enough to wear it.… More