What's better than controlling your Ecobee3 with the touch screen? Controlling it with your iPhone! Once we set up and installed the Ecobee3 wifi thermostat, the next step was to set it up on our iPhone. To do that, we downloaded the Ecobee3 app and then registered a new user using the code provided by the thermostat. We set up our account name and password, and then we were good to go...
The Insteon Hub brings switches, outlets, thermostats, and light bulbs into Apple's HomeKit ecosystem. With the Insteon Hub and HomeKit you can create and control multiple houses, rooms, and zones with your iPhone, iPad, or Siri. Quickly build scenes and adjust several devices at once, along with scheduling scenes to repeat on specific days, weeks, or dates. There's even a...
Ecobee4 is a wifi thermostat that's not owned by a data-collection giant, and has extra sensors for extra functionality. Our friends at Android Central recently took a deeper look at Google's Nest, so we thought we'd do the same thing with the ecobee4, which as thermostats go, might be even smarter. And we're starting with a hands-on install! $249 - Order now Step 1:...
The Philips Hue team will expand its lineup of connected lights in late May/early June with the new Philips Hue Go. The light can run on batteries, which means it can be taken anywhere. The price for the device will be $99.95. The Philips Hue Go, like other Philips Hue light bulbs, can be customized with geofencing, program timers and light recipes via mobile apps. The company says...
Wifi thermostats are making their way into more and more homes. Gone are the old mercury dials that simply turned your system on or off & adjusted the temperature, here to stay are new devices that you can customize and control from a mobile device when you're miles away from home. In our pursuit to find the best wifi thermostat of them all, we spent some time with the ecobee3 — a...
Bird Home Automation has announced the DoorBird Video Doorbell, a new smart doorbell for connected homes. This doorbell includes a video camera and connects to your iPhone or Android device, letting you see and communicate with people outside your home no matter where you are using either Wi-Fi or a cellular connection. The DoorBird will be compatible with a number of smart home devices...
Netatmo may be a name you're not so familiar with, but at CES 2015 they're on hand showing off their connected home camera system that will also support the Apple Watch as well as the iPhone. It also boasts that it'll recognise the faces of anyone you tell it to any time that they're in your home. Once you've told the companion app who your family and any other trusted faces are, the...
Greetings and happy December 29, iMore! The major winter holidays have mostly passed us by, and hopefully you've survived — and dare I hope, enjoyed — the family get-togethers, the excess food, and terrible party games. Some of you are undoubtedly back at work today, while others are still enjoying the last fragments of a winter vacation. Me, I'm somewhere in-between. Clearly, I'm at...
If you've ever wondered how the keyless hotel room locks work at Starwood Hotels, you're in for a treat. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak demonstrated the lock with the accompanying SPG app on his iPhone on video. Essentially, users launch the SPG app on their iPhone and then just tap their phones to the lock, wait a few seconds, and then the door opens. With the SPG app, hotel...
Ahead of the launch of HomeKit devices, Apple has started selling the Ecobee3 smart thermostat in its online and physical stores. The Ecobee3 will share shelf space at Apple with the competing Google-owned Nest Learning Thermostat, showing Apple is starting to expand the category with more products. The thermostat retails for $249.95. Unlike other smart thermostat, the Ecobee3 could...