Narrative: The Smart Home is Stuck
Each narrative page (like this) has a page describing and evaluating the narrative, followed by all the posts on the site tagged with that narrative. Scroll down beyond the introduction to see the posts.
Vivint Smart Home Delivers on the Promise of Artificial Intelligence for the Home – Press Release (Jan 4, 2017)
Vivint is one of the companies that’s closest to my vision for what needs to happen in the smart home, a space that’s currently characterized by lots of disconnected islands and a retail DIY model that’s fine for early adopters but lousy for mainstream users. I wrote about Vivint’s vision a few months back after I was briefed on it, and they’ve now announced the actual product off the back of it. This, and not Amazon’s Echo/Alexa, is what a truly smart home assistant looks like.
via Vivint Smart Home Delivers on the Promise of Artificial Intelligence for the Home – Press Release
Here’s all of the Apple HomeKit stuff you’ll see at CES – CNET (Jan 3, 2017)
Most of the smart home coverage I’ve seen has given HomeKit short shrift, and rightly so – it took well over a year from the initial announcement for products to start shipping in any kind of numbers, and meanwhile Amazon’s Echo has grabbed lots of attention in the same space. However, HomeKit devices are now starting to emerge in larger numbers, and HomeKit as a platform is much smarter than Echo, which is essentially a dumb front end which merely passes through requests to the real brain, which lives elsewhere. HomeKit has some way to go, but it is finally starting to gain traction. However, see also this contrary take from the Verge.
via Here’s all of the Apple HomeKit stuff you’ll see at CES – CNET