I love the concept of a smart home and have a number of monitoring devices. I have Nest for temperature control, Dropcam to keep a close eye on my front door and WeMo for my lights and outlets. But there is one thing I have noticed, they all feel like silos. These products have different apps, independent push notifications, and they all serve separate purposes. I receive so many irrelevant push notifications that I am beginning to wonder when I will miss a notification I actually care about. I won’t deny that they are cool gadgets, but they could be better.
The IoT industry has an opportunity to make products that are actually smart. There are too many notifications and devices don’t learn fast, if at all, leaving a fragmented ecosystem of products, apps, and notifications. Few devices have settings to filter notifications or set rules, and many just send alerts about everything. UX needs improvement!
Real intelligence is missing from my world of “smart things.” Notion, currently in Techstars, has a unique approach – to give me information about my home that I actually care about and only when it’s important. Notion focuses on home intelligence and just launched a Kickstarter campaign and already has $200,000 in orders as I’m writing this. The Notion team has created a multi-function sensor about the size of an Oreo that can detect light, acceleration, sound, natural frequency, orientation, temperature, water leaks, and proximity. Notion can tell you the simple things a home security system can detect, like if a door opens, a window breaks, or an alarm goes off, but it can also tell you if the temperature of a baby’s room is too hot or cold, if a pipe breaks in your basement, if a teenager is getting into your liquor cabinet or if your propane tank is low.
This is cool functionality to be sure, but what I am most excited about is that it actually learns about me over time as I accept and decline alerts. I’ll be able to set my own custom rules in the app too. I don’t need to know every single time my front door opens because it’s usually my family or anticipated visitors. I’m also looking forward to calendar, weather and other useful integrations to customize the UX for my life. All of these improvements are made possible by their single sensor and innovative data technologies.
I love home automation, but what I need are intelligent devices that are more than just gadgets. As the smart home market continues to evolve, the appetite for products that truly make you smarter about your home and your life will continue to grow and become more useful. I’m excited to watch Notion progress and can’t wait to get the sensors I ordered via Kickstarter.
It’s been so interesting to watch the IoT world expand. The smart home discussion is obviously real, but I agree that more must happen to bridge the gap between a hyped idea that geeks like us will always be drawn to…and the large majority of normal home owner who will only consider an IoT solution if it’s easy, quick, and costs less.
I agree with all of this and it is an even bigger issue in the industrial sector. This type of problem has been going on for years in a medical operating room where you have tons of machines all with their warnings so much so the staff turns off much of it but then may miss something. You need a control system to manage everything and know when a few things happen it could trigger a more major alarm.
You specifically mentioned the annoying silo effect of commercial home automation products. If you want a sensor from one company to turn on lights controlled by another company, you might want to check out an open source project called OpenHAB.
Here’s some examples of what the system is capable of.
http://goo.gl/ZFOZ3p
It can integrate your Wemo lights and outlets to any number of sensors, and react to them based on rules or interface setpoints. It can send you emails or other push notification, you can send different emails based on priority of the notice. It’s pretty flexible.
thanks!