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Home > life > Wireless Industry News > The Bluetooth Smart Home Part 2

The Bluetooth Smart Home Part 2

2017/1/16 15:33:47     Source: SIG     Views:1473     Comments:0

Summary:Smart Home

My first post in this series was around simple devices that you could add to your home to make things easier. And with summer here, I am really loving that iGrill device.

But now we want to start making our home a bit smarter. There are a lot of solutions out there (and even more coming to market over the next few months) that can help you get there. In this post I am going to focus on a few of them you can get your hands on now or very soon that will allow you to start on your smart home adventure.

Smartplug AppThe first up is Zuli with its Smartplugs. It’s extremely easy to get going with this solution. Simply plug a Smartplug into an electrical outlet where you want to control something, and voila! You’re 50% done setting that device up. You have the option of adding an electrical appliance or device such as a coffee machine or heater, or a dimmable or non-dimmable light.

Once I have all of my Smartplugs in, an app walks me through the process of configuring the Smartplugs themselves and the individual rooms which they are in via Bluetooth. The nice thing about the app is that it lays everything out in a nice graphical manner and makes configuration of your smart home really easy.

The fun part comes  after you have your home all set upSmartplug App by Zuliwith your Smartplugs. First, you can see how much energy the device plugged in is using. That can come in handy for some of the other configurations, like setting up a schedule to turn the device on or off based on a time of day and an interval.

One feature I really dig is the ability to use presence to turn things on. Right now, I have the entryway lamp turning on or off based on my proximity to it. So I walk to the entryway at night when I come home after work, it turns on; I walk away from it, and it turns off. Of course, I need to be carrying my phone around with me for this to work properly, but that’s why it works so well in an area like an entryway where you might not want to use a schedule, but you DO want the thing on when you get close to it, such as when I’m coming to the door at night with my phone in my pocket).

This solution is a very easy way to configure your existing home into a smart home…it’s a snap. The only drawback is that currently the software to control and configure the solution only works with iOS, so if you have another type of phone or tablet, you’re out of luck right now. However, I’m sure that Zuli will be supporting other mobile OSes in the near future.

(Credit: Steve Hegenderfer)


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