The possibilities with renovating 100 year old homes is pretty exciting to me. It used to require a total overhaul behind the walls and under the floors - now smart technology, an outlet, and minimal piping you can totally change a home in a weekend. After we first got married my wife and I lived in a house built in the 1920's - I don't think it was ever updated other than minimal electricity and (really bad) window AC units. It was miserable. The house, however, was beautiful. The possibility of controlling lights and *Air from my phone (with updated wall units in each room) is really cool. Add the ability to have a TV in any room there is an outlet (no cable wires required) and what else do you really need? Not to mention the fact that most of that could come with me when I leave. Who would have thought about light bulbs as an investment?
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Apple to Launch New 'Smart Home' Platform at WWDC
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I hope Insteon jumps on board with this. The Insteon system has worked very reliably for me; but their app -- while it gets the job done -- could be so much better. I'd love to try an Apple-designed app with Siri integration to control my Insteon equipment.
Epic
Or u gotta sign in youtube to open your fridge
Don't forget that you'll have to link your fridge to a Google+ account.
Seems a bit late in my opinion.
Sure the masses don't have home automation systems yet, but the people that influence others do. I have a Z-Wave based system from Lowes called IRIS. Before that I had a Schlage/Trane Z-Wave system called Nexia. I have a lot of money into Z-Wave devices from door locks, door & windows sensors, a sprinkler system controller, water sensors, garage door controllers, and outdoor outlets.
Unless Apple is going to allow hub manufacturers to integrate and continue to run the whole system themselves, I just don't see Apple having success here.
It might be fine for someone who has a wifi thermostat, but I don't see much success beyond that.
Sure the masses don't have home automation systems yet, but the people that influence others do. I have a Z-Wave based system from Lowes called IRIS. Before that I had a Schlage/Trane Z-Wave system called Nexia. I have a lot of money into Z-Wave devices from door locks, door & windows sensors, a sprinkler system controller, water sensors, garage door controllers, and outdoor outlets.
Unless Apple is going to allow hub manufacturers to integrate and continue to run the whole system themselves, I just don't see Apple having success here.
It might be fine for someone who has a wifi thermostat, but I don't see much success beyond that.
The electric companies already control your home heating and cooling, so you are a little late to the game, here.
This is probably the single most meaningless statement ever passed off as investing wisdom, right after "what goes up must come down."
This is going to be an awesome selling feature in emerging markets.
Brazil, China, and India have all been clamoring for the chance to automate and integrate their hovels.
Brazil, China, and India have all been clamoring for the chance to automate and integrate their hovels.
Good lord...
Who needs a computer... Sit in front of your fridge all day, the you wouldn't need to walk anywhere,,, just open the door to get drinks... plus you'll have a large display too.
Double the fun.
We don't wanna go down the privacy/invasion here... Google already knows enough. Otherwise they'd be like "bulk data collection just like the NSA"
Scary thought.
But then again, people may not care by the time this happens.
Simpsons did it
This already exists in the proprietary Philips Hue app. I can customize a set of lights to turn on based on my location.
I suppose its a matter of perspective and your personal definition of success and failure. Yes taking out my iPhone and starting an app to turn on a light would be irritating if I was standing right next to a switch. However turning on your porch light when you are outside drunk trying to find your keys / key hole or turning on and off your lights without getting out of bed are pretty cool advantages of home automation. Neither of those things are possible with conventional light switches unless you covered your walls in light switches. So i guess it's not necessarily a matter of doing things better than before, rather doing new things that were not possible with conventional hardware.
After some type of core integration like this, the only downside I see to Home automation is the price. They are definitely luxury purchases that are not economically rational, but the WOW/cool factor seems to be what mainly drives it for people.
No, that's what this unified "hub" and integration would do. What you are describing is the current issue many home auto-maters are facing. Everyone has their own 3rd party app that must be used rather than me simply asking siri to turn on my lights or using the control center that you drag up from the bottom of the screen(which your phone does not need to be unlocked to access). I would gladly replace my calculator button with a light-switch button.
This already exists in the proprietary Philips Hue app. I can customize a set of lights to turn on based on my location.
I suppose its a matter of perspective and your personal definition of success and failure. Yes taking out my iPhone and starting an app to turn on a light would be irritating if I was standing right next to a switch. However turning on your porch light when you are outside drunk trying to find your keys / key hole or turning on and off your lights without getting out of bed are pretty cool advantages of home automation. Neither of those things are possible with conventional light switches unless you covered your walls in light switches. So i guess it's not necessarily a matter of doing things better than before, rather doing new things that were not possible with conventional hardware.
After some type of core integration like this, the only downside I see to Home automation is the price. They are definitely luxury purchases that are not economically rational, but the WOW/cool factor seems to be what mainly drives it for people.
But who walks into a dark room and uses their apps to turn the lights on?
The rooms in my house controlled by IRIS still have switches on the wall.
I log into the hub to make rule changes, such as when this door opens between these hours, turn the lights on automatically.
Or when my keyfob leaves the house, turn off all of the smart outlets and arm the alarm.
The key to a smart home is not having to interact with it on a regular basis... if you have to, its not very smart. Is there room for improvement with the current systems out there? Of course.... but I don't really see Apple bringing a lot of value to this space...
But maybe I will be wowed. I can't say I have been super impressed with anything they've done the past few years... but, I feel like i've seen everything technology can do.... bumping up specs or changing a UI theme doesn't really get me excited anymore
The rooms in my house controlled by IRIS still have switches on the wall.
I log into the hub to make rule changes, such as when this door opens between these hours, turn the lights on automatically.
Or when my keyfob leaves the house, turn off all of the smart outlets and arm the alarm.
The key to a smart home is not having to interact with it on a regular basis... if you have to, its not very smart. Is there room for improvement with the current systems out there? Of course.... but I don't really see Apple bringing a lot of value to this space...
But maybe I will be wowed. I can't say I have been super impressed with anything they've done the past few years... but, I feel like i've seen everything technology can do.... bumping up specs or changing a UI theme doesn't really get me excited anymore
That's odd, as a shareholder, I see their stock go up every year in the few months following a WWDC announcement, no matter the product.
That really pissed me off. I had purchased a $350 Pioneer car deck that was MFi and after an iOS software update, I'd get that message. The phone would still play music (although it would only do it by playing the first song in the library forcing me to skip ahead to find a song I wanted), but wouldn't charge so I couldn't do both at the same time. No firmware update from Pioneer to fix it either.
Same thing happened with 2 speaker docks.
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But who walks into a dark room and uses their apps to turn the lights on?
The rooms in my house controlled by IRIS still have switches on the wall.
I log into the hub to make rule changes, such as when this door opens between these hours, turn the lights on automatically.
Or when my keyfob leaves the house, turn off all of the smart outlets and arm the alarm.
The key to a smart home is not having to interact with it on a regular basis... if you have to, its not very smart. Is there room for improvement with the current systems out there? Of course.... but I don't really see Apple bringing a lot of value to this space...
But maybe I will be wowed. I can't say I have been super impressed with anything they've done the past few years... but, I feel like i've seen everything technology can do.... bumping up specs or changing a UI theme doesn't really get me excited anymore
Like yours, my lights come on automatically. Motion sensors control normally dark areas. My Nest thermostat knows whether I am home or not and adjust it self automatically. My door locks when I leave and unlocks when I return. All of this from existing iPhone apps.
but the vast majority of people don't own iPhone or Apple products, so it makes sense to make any hardware work with the larger audience.
Like how many people would own Mac's if Msoft acted like Apple do and not allow windows to run on a Mac.
I don't see Apple allowing OSX to run on a PC, as they know people would rather buy a PC and run OSX than would buy a Mac
But this year we can say 100% that the stock will go down.
Why?
Because the split takes place on the 3rd
really ?
Apple seem to want to try and close the doors and do it all themselves.
No closed system ever works long term.
Short term sure, but not long term
Apple will just keep their little safe corner and make money whilst the rest of the world carries on working.
There could be an iWatch depending on what it is and doss. It's possible that iOS 8 would leak it anyway and thus Apple, which is obsessed with being the one to announce things, might go ahead and announce it so that appropriate folks can design for it for when it and iOS 8 launches in the fall.