The Internet of Things

We’ve been told that an Internet of Things (IoT) is coming, and our salt shakers will soon be speaking to our light bulbs. But how? There’s no decided way for all of these devices to talk to one another. That was, until this week, when Nest, the smart thermostat company owned by Google, opened its Continue Reading →

Oh yeah, this is the year the smart home goes mainstream. This week Time has devoted a hunk of its magazine to profiling Tony Fadell, the founder of Nest, explaining SmartThings and showing off six “smart homes” that aren’t exactly smart. The profile of Fadell gets into his concept of the conscious home and won’t Continue Reading →

Hot on the heels of its $555 million acquisition of Dropcam, Nest is announcing plans to work with a variety of products, including LIFX light bulbs, the MyQ garage opener from Chamberlain, Logitech’s universal remote, Jawbone and Google’s voice controls. The news is an expected expansion of the Nest platform, which had originally planned to Continue Reading →

Dropcam, the popular home monitoring camera startup, will be acquired by Nest, maker of smart thermostats and smoke detectors. The deal is worth $555 million in cash. Nest itself was just purchased by Google just four months ago for $3.2 billion. But the company says it is undertaking this acquisition on its own, outside of Continue Reading →

The “internet of things” refers to the idea of turning everyday objects around us into responsive data devices. It’s one of the hottest ideas in tech right now — even if we’re totally lacking the resources we need to support it. Speaking at Gigaom’s Structure event in San Francisco, four experts well-versed in the practical Continue Reading →

Wi-Fi LED lightbulbs are cool — I’m currently enamoured with a pair of LIFX bulbs I’m testing for an upcoming smart home post, along with those from competitor Philips. But you know what might be even cooler? Lightbulbs that double as wireless multi-room and music-reacting speakers. That’s the premise of Whome Bulb from London/Shanghai-based WaveBomb, Continue Reading →

Jahangir Mohammed’s iconic fishing trip is now part of company folklore at Jasper Technologies. Heading to Lake Tahoe a decade ago, his car engine warning light lit up so Mohammed detoured to find a mechanic. Turns out that the auto only needed a simple computer reset, but the incident led Mohammed to contemplate what it Continue Reading →

The Nest Protect is now available following its two-month hiatus after it was pulled for safety concerns. The smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector is now only $99, down from its $129 launch price. The Nest Protect is available from the Google Play store starting tonight. However, one of its key features is still disabled. Continue Reading →

Honeywell may now be looking to take on Nest with a new sleek and stylish thermostat, but it’s still making sure that users of its other connected systems enjoy updates too. In a bid to make things a little easier for owners of it evohome smart zoning thermostat, the company has extended support to the Continue Reading →

Good morning! Or evening, if you happen to be reading this on the other side of the world. Our topic for today is the internet. What? You already know about the internet? No, no, I don’t mean that internet, the boring old one you use to access YouTube and send Facebook updates, email and tweets Continue Reading →