Not too long ago I refurbished my house. I really wanted to use Hue bulbs throughout, the Lux white bulbs mainly so that I could do dimming throughout the house and stacks of integrations without having to spend thousands on replacing old cables. The problem was the lack of a decent switch. I already had the Hue tap and I was not about to put one in every room (It lives in the guest room as the furniture covers the regular switch) It is noisy, and because it requires more force than a "tap" doesn't always work

I ended up using a Philips Dynalite Antumbra, as shown below with then the capability from an app to control as well and just recently added in the control from my Harmony remote via Smartthings, thanks Tim!

I am very happy with this solution but will absolutely be buying the new addition to the Hue family. A lot of the reaction I have seen questions this product, "A switch to control when I already have an app" But apps are not something that every member of the family uses or visitors; so now I believe this brings Hue out from (in my opinion) being just a hobby product. It could feasibly be used across the whole house and with the US pricing indication, $40 for the switch and a bulb, it should fly off Apple store shelves. I just hope it gets sold seperately!

Well of course time will tell but it appears to be an inspired move in the smarthome market. One of the big challenges in the market of smart home is how to actually show the devices live in action before they get installed in the comfort of your own home. Target have put many of these devices in the same place the just opened "Open House" to not just show but so they can also show how they interact together, this will be for startups such as Mimo Baby monitor to presumably IFTTT products and Works with Nest

Now open in San Francisco and whilst maybe not as large a move as Amazon's move with the Echo and Alexa fund it does give consumers and even geeks the possibility to get hands on time before purchase. Now time to book my flight and head to Schiphol!

Recently it has been reported that there has been a slowdown in smart home sales and that others have questioned what the killer app is for the smart home. There seem to be two main general use cases so far or pillars even, one of energy saving and the other of security. Comfort for me is the third, but this product is all about the first - Energy.

It was really after a week or two that things started to settle down to show all of devices throughout the home as numbers and then to match them up, there are some great videos on youtube showing how much energy can be saved. But that's really not where the fun is. The kit comes with 1 plug that can be switched off via the Smappee app, in the home or outside to save on energy. Buying the 65 Euro kit to have 6 more and two physical remotes meant I could have a few in areas where I have energy guzzlers, or where I don't frequent so often, or something that is not controllable/automated.

That's where the fun comes in as Smappee also has a watch app, so now I have control of the garden lights right from my watch. Schedules can be setup and triggers of one device being turned on to switch another, although I haven't got the last part to work so well yet.

It does have an IFTTT channel which means further possibilities and triggers, and links to Smartthings too, more of that to follow in a later post.

Smappee is easy to install, requires patience and should provide ROI of 1-2 years. But the low cost connected plugs are a great find, and provide the magic third pillar of the smart home = Comfort/Convenience. 


Smappee.com