THE #1 AV NEWS PUBLICATION. PERIOD.

A Thoughtful Home and A Better Tomorrow

Back in 2015, Nest put out a video on its YouTube page called “Welcome To The Thoughtful Home.” It details all the dated appliances, devices, systems and “things” we all use daily and nightly in and around our homes that are rather time consuming, and designed from another area. The video itself goes so far as to call them “dumb,” and states that they can often go unnoticed, but they noticed them, so shouldn’t your home notice us too?

Many people who are not in the AV/tech and automation industry I speak with say no; that’s overkill, or why is that necessary. To which I say, convenience, energy efficiency, time and money saving are the main reasons. Also, because we can.

Building, industrial and home automation isn’t necessarily new by any means, but we now have more affordable solutions from major manufacturers that are able to to be controlled via voice. Google, Amazon, Apple and Josh AI all offer voice integrations with these manufacturers for a complete new age automated system, but it’s companies like Google, Amazon and even Apple with HomeKit that are actively making products that contribute to what Nest has described in their “Thoughtful Home” video.

Since then, Google has made a huge push for smart devices beyond Nest, the works with Nest program and beyond that, Nest has even joined Google to provide a slew of Smart devices (smart speakers, assistants, Wi-Fi, smart cameras, video doorbell and smart lock) and a ton of integrations to truly offer and provide a “Thoughtful Home.” We’ve seen the Google Home app continually get updated, Chromecast app was moved into it and get a new and improved look, with a home page for all of your chrome cast enabled devices including Google home devices, Chromecast and Chromecast Audio. We also now get “Suggestions” for things that can be done with casting like music and video services, it allows access direct to Google Play, so we get media galore, and with a simple voice command, “Hey, Google — play music from Tidal Hi-Fi and even Play music from Roon on my Bedroom TV.”

No doubt that the majority of today’s home’s being built, having a basic level of technology inside them and are pre-wired to accept new technologies moving forward. Not only that, but these technologies are typically connected to the world by way of some sweet, sweet Wi-Fi (wired connections too) and with all these devices living on your home’s network, it needs to be a solid foundation; again companies like Google and Eero alike are providing mesh network solutions with the consumer in mind.

Not to take away from integrators by any means — in fact some integrators setup these simple devices because it something that most people still don’t want to deal with during setup and Integration of other smart devices; the consumer will however engage with these devices when all complete, so they can live in a thoughtful home, and/or a smarter one. The acronym IOT gets used more often than not when referring to “smart devices,” but again integration and connected devices is not a new concept: IOT isn’t new, it’s just new to you.

Living in a smarter home or a thoughtful one at least, is only one connected device away, and it only gets better from there; the more you connect, the more is possible in and around your home. Now, what will you do in your thoughtful home?

Tell me all about it here: Johnny@rAVePubs.com …I’ll remind the assistant to leave the light on for you and I’ll greet you from the doorbell camera.

 

Top