Home kit is finally launching but what problem is being solved?

 

I’m an early adopter. I’ve had connected home products for almost 10 years some that have required professional installation and some more recently that I’ve installed and updated myself. 

As MacRumors notes … 

HomeKit provides a standardized framework for manufacturers that develop home automation products, letting them interface with the Apple ecosystem and with each other. Through HomeKit, connected devices like lights, thermostats, speakers, smart plugs, and more can be controlled by Siri. For example, HomeKit enables commands like “Siri, turn off my lights,” or “Siri, turn the temperature up before I get home.” 

Though HomeKit was announced in 2014, it has taken nearly a year for companies to complete Apple’s certification process and get products ready for store shelves. Several companies like iDevices, Schlage, and Elgato have previously announced plans for HomeKit-compatible products, but until today, no products were ready to launch. 

The first three companies to announce completed HomeKit-compatible products that will be available for purchase shortly are Lutron, iHome, and Elgato. Lutron is debuting its Caséta Wireless Lighting Starter Kit with Smart Bridge, while iHome is announcing its iSP5 SmartPlug, and Elgato is launching its “Eve” connected home sensors. Ecobee and Insteon also announced new HomeKit-compatible products today. 

Sounds pretty cool on the surface, right? Wait until you get this stuff into your house. Have a partner or some kids?  Many activities aside from lighting timers are generally more complex and slower than simply taking a simple physical action. Recipes and macros are certainly interesting but tend to be a bit too complex for the average bear. 

And the kicker is that things fail and get out of sync pretty easily. A binary switch that’s been flipped because someone in your house has already intuitively known how to turn lights on and off immediately kills your smartphone superpower. And get ready to re-sync devices on the network as things misfire. 

Don’t get me wrong I love this stuff. I’m actually quite excited for a more open standard and believe that Google’s Brillo and Weave will assist here. Presumably Homekit devices will also work across protocol as many smart home products do today but again this stuff is far from bulletproof. I haven’t  seen anything from Apple that shows they’ve got the software and services chops to fix an array of devices hanging on the network. I’m certainly ready to be impressed …

Google’s sense of design for the future

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It seems almost crazy to see a massive piece on Google design given the history but if you’ve been using Android recently you’ve probably noticed some great things. I’ve discussed the differences between iOS and Android quite a few times and the more you use things on both platforms the more things that might seem like small details start to add up …

Examples like these happen everywhere in iOS, and they’re painfully obvious when compared to Lollipop, the latest version of Android. There, your notifications appear in a drawer, again from the top of the phone. But every one takes you directly to an action inside an app, making it foolproof to get into maps or Uber or Facebook. There’s intelligence behind what you see: A algorithm that invisibly figures out what notifications are most important to you, and serves those up first. There are hardly any chances to swipe wrong. You won’t end up in a place you hadn’t expected. In so many places, Android is so much more logical, the details so much more alive. Tapping any button sends a wash of color across the screen, like a ripple across a pond—a smart way of underscoring your taps, while hiding the teensy bit of lag that occurs as you wait for app to response.

Such attention to detail used to be Apple’s thing. Today, that distinction falls to Google. Unveiled last year, Material Design—Google’s evolving design language for phones, tablets, and desktop—offers relentless consistency in interactions; invisible rules that govern everything, so that every app feels familiar; and beauty in the service of function. It’s why so many designers will tell you, as they’ve told me, “I just like Android better.” Whereas iOS is still inching along without improving much, Google is creating a coherent, unified language that easily scales across phones, with enough flexibility to jump to watches and cars. “It’s not even about composing a UI in one place,” says Nicholas Jitkoff, who helped lead the creation of Material Design. “It’s about composing interactions from one device to the next.”

FastCo Design

When I woke up this morning there were over 100 notifications on my iPhone lockscreen from Google Photos which is processing the 90,000+ photos uploading from our home computer.  There were quite a few additional bits from other apps like email and news I use but a single action of opening / unlocking the device and they are all gone … Forever. On android things are nicely packaged together and importantly are not destroyed if I swipe in or act upon a single piece.

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The considerations that have evolved in Material Design and that consider to evolve are very clearly focused on the ever changing waybin which we use our devices. It’s easy to say there is copying going on between the two key platforms but that misses the important nuances that really highlight the focus Android has on enhancing the real user experience.

The future of payments and loyalty is here now

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Imagine a world in which you easily pay without having to carry your wallet. You can manage who has rights to pay within your family and manage preferences easily from your mobile or web. Imagine the surprise and delight of being recognized automatically as you are  rewarded with personal content that regularly enhances your daily experiences.

All of this is available today, but so far only exists within Walt Disney World.  I’ve just returned from a family trip and the Disney Magic+ band was an amazing aspect of the trip.  The bands are linked to your account which tracks hotel and restaurant reservations, members of your traveling party and preferences you’ve set for things like FastPass+ or access to special events.  Once you are on site, the band serves as your room key, ticket to the park and FastPass+ gates as well as payment for just about anything you might consider.  I’ll get to the one (ok two) exception(s) I found in a moment …

My family arrived on Thursday and that day I carried my wallet as I always do along with phone.  It became clear very quickly though that the wallet was simply redundant and I left it in our room for the days that followed.  Entering the park is a simple tap on the sensor touchpoint which after a few seconds glows green to confirm you are clear to go.  Band wearers with payment capability are also asked to confirm their identity via a quick finger print touch for ID.  What’s interesting about that piece is that you haven’t previously conceded your print (unless you’ve been to the park previously though I doubt that’s used).  I’m guessing it’s used as a backup for a fraud check as you’d have a biometric print on file to review.

Inside the park, you can use the band to pay for anything you need or want along the way.  Food and souvenirs can be paid for with a simple tap and confirmation via PIN.  If a photographer snaps a pic of your family they can tap the band to map the image to your account. I noticed that the images were available within about an hour which is pretty amazing (and a bit unnecessary even) given the volume of traffic and level of activity the typical party has going on.  In restaurants with table service each server and many of the hosts have iPod touch or iPads with scanners mounted on the underside of the cases in which they sit.  When it’s time to pay / be ID’d the process is quick, painless and frankly a pleasure.

One of the more interesting aspects of the bands though is how you are identified while enjoying a ride.  At the end of many of the more exciting sites there’s a picture wall which shows you enjoying things … these images are automagically synced to your account as well!  While pretty much everyone runs over to enjoy the pictures, Magic+ users are informed the images are already waiting for them which is pretty amazing since there’s no action required.  The bands are RFID which allows them to be scanned from a bit of a distance … I’m not sure what frequency they run on, but it’s enough of a distance that you have no sense the scanner is nearby.  They enhances the impact of the images auto-syncing to your account.  While I did not witness this firsthand, I believe it would also enable Disney Cast Members (park and resort staff) to seamless wish people a happy birthday, anniversary etc which today is largely managed through buttons people proudly wear.

All in the experience was pretty excellent.  I did however run into two small glitches in the matrix.  The first was in a vending machine in our hotel.  The machine accepted bills and NFC payments, but not the Magic+ band which feels like a miss given the use in 99.99% of the rest of the park.  The other was when I had the concierge adjust and change a dinner reservation and was asked for my credit card to hold things.  This one was a surprise frankly as there was a card on file for our bands and rooms and really felt unnecessary – especially since payment for the meal out be managed through the band!

Quick note on the vending machine as well … As it offered NFC, I tried MANY times to get Apple Pay to work, but it failed and eventually took the NFC function offline (literally deactivated) after a few tries.  The machine actually suggested I use a softcard (ISIS) which was the first I’ve seen in the wild … after a trip back to the room for my wallet I was finally able to buy a bottle of water – with cash.

The Disney implementation of Magic+ bands shows how proper consideration can really deliver a high value, low friction experience regularly across quite a few use cases and is something I hope others will learn from.  When you can control the end-to-end it’s certainly easy by comparison, but it did cost Disney around $1 Billion to roll-out.  The best part was it was very clear that everyone around was able to use it, not just techie types.  Additionally and perhaps even more importantly while there’s a lot of complex technology in place, the experience was not technical but rather more personal and allowed more positive human interaction.

 

LG G watch R looks nice but …

LG_G_Watch_R___Official_Product_Video_-_YouTube

… Someone might want to help LG understand the difference between hiking and biking.  I snapped that screenshot from their product video which just released.  Looks like a handsome watch for sure and has a full circle screen unlike the almost circle Moto 360.  Pricing will be higher than other Android Wear devices at close to $300 when it’s released, but still less than starting price for the Apple Watch (which seems to do more but obviously isn’t out yet).

Full video is here:

 

Xiaomi bringing 4K TV and home control to everyone

 

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Xiaomi (Mi) are kicking some serious ass right now. Beautiful hardware at super low prices.  They’ve held flash sales on phones and sold millions … Now three new router boxes. How about a 4K STB for $63 or a home control system with 1TB of storage for $110!  The rate of change with pricing accessibility is fantastic. Via liliputing

Hacking the Tesla … or any car?

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So apparently and not surprisingly the Tesla has a computer network running inside … Dragtimes reports how a user noticed what they believed to be an ethernet jack and decided to connect their computer for a port scan.

Some tech savvy Model S owners have located a 4 pin connector (HSD 4 pole M12) on the left side of the Tesla Model S dashboard that turns out to be a disguised ethernet networking port.  After taking apart one end of an ethernet patch cable and trying different pin combinations to connect with the Tesla’s port, a networking connection was established between the Model S and a laptop computer.  This connection allowed for port scanning and data sniffing to explore  how the Tesla Model S systems communicate with each other and what services are running and used.

The car’s internal 100 Mbps, full duplex ethernet network consists of 3 devices with assiged IP addresses in the 192.168.90.0 subnet, the center console, dashboard/nav screen and one more unknown device.  via DragTimes.com.

This raises an interesting question … would you hack or jailbreak your car?  Unlike the typical computer a car has a pretty large set of safety responsibilities and I personally think it’s a bad idea.  Trying to get a custom app on there outside of provided and approved platform could lead to trouble.  It doesn’t seem worth the risk …

Nintendo

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Everything You’re Thinking About Nintendo Is Totally Wrong | Game|Life | Wired.com.

Interesting read.

I agree … more, easily accessible content would only make my kids want more not less Nintendo.  They (all three) are very happy to play games on our Wii U and generally do together while they play games on mobile alone, but nearby.  They seem to get more fun naturally out of the shared experience and Nintendo needs to work a bit more to deliver this consistently — and at a price that parents like me would want to continuously pay.  $5 for Rayman Fiesta on Mobile and $60 for the Wii U DLC is a pretty massive disparity for starters … but importantly more easy to download games for their 3DS and easier cheaper, but strong historical (and even new) content on the Wii U could be killer.

Everyday Carry

Damn I carry a lot of gear and it’s only really hitting me because I’ve had to pack and unpack 4 times since monday while traveling.  Thank goodness just about everything runs on mini-USB and I can just plug whatever into the nearest connector. I need to take a better inventory of my cables and make sure they carry the higher voltage for faster charging.

My current carry:

  • Nexus 5 (primary – work line)
  • Nexus 4 (secondary – personal calls forward to the other)
  • Nexus 7
  • Google Glass (on loan)
  • Pebble SmartWatch (proprietary connector)
  • Withings Pulse
  • Nike+ Fuelband
  • AT&T 4G LTE Mifi
  • Beats Pro Headphones
  • Jawbone Jambox (picked up in SF)
  • Mophie Powerstation Duo (recent addition for 6000 mAh charging!)

Having a huge tech fail day

My day started last night actually after midnight as the Nexus 5 (active only for a few hours) decided to freak out. I was suddenly unable to login to Google+ or Hangouts. Google sync started to freak as well with inconsistent sync to Calendar and a bunch of other things.

This morning I fought the phone a bit before finally conceding to a full hard reset at lunch wiping the phone for a fresh start. Sadly as soon as it started back up hangouts prompted with its error and G+ continued to block me. Sigh. No resolution. I spent a bit actually speaking to Google tech support (yes, it exists!) But they were fully stumped as well. I’ll have to wait 24-48 hours apparently for a response and a potentially new device.

Thinking about other options to try and triage the problem I decided to change my account password which sent Chrome on my Mac, Google Glass (more to come) and my other devices into a tizzy. Glass only sorta connected back to my phone, required a reset as well (my guess) and then my other phone (N4) and tablet (N7) got all outta whack due to the account change. Now none want to connect appropriately and I seem to have lost app-based access to hangouts and Google+ on everything. Before I left work for the week the web worked and I’ll try again at home but on the train each device has seemingly lost it’s desire to stay connected. Oh and Google Now seems dead on the Nexus 5.

I’m at a loss. I thought this was some sort of device issue bit now it’s propagated across a few others making me think my Google account has partially corrupted. WTF.

Help …

Disney Research re-imagines the pop-up book #maker style and it’s awesome

Disney Research has pioneered a method to create new interactive experiences with paper, some simple electronics and some conductive ink. The result is really, really cool. With three kids we’ve worked our way through many books together many of which have had some interactive components through flaps and folds and even sound or simple lights. Eventually they all kinda wear out … a kid is too rough and they tear or the battery simply dies and the book loses its extra fun. With this technique, we could pretty easily print and rebuild. We could probably remix the book as well which is where things could really start to get creative.

Batteries not included … and not required!

via FastCo

Unapologetically plastic.

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The past few days I’ve been using a blue iPhone 5C courtesy of work. It’s just a loaner and it’s been an interesting return to iOS after quite a few months of being entirely on Android. Some thoughts …

  • Solid. Plastic or not the 5C feels great in your hand.
  • Size matters. One one hand the iPhone is quite small in comparison to any recent top end android device. Typing feels a bit cramped by comparison though you get used to it. The iPhone is still largely focused on and delivers a single hand experience.
  • Responsiveness. More than general speed the iPhone has a responsive gestalt and it’s a pleasure to use in most circumstances. I found myself wanting to use it more often than my other devices. Time will tell as it’s far from perfect but really such a well considered and designed device. My last active iPhone was the 4S for reference … It’s sitting in my briefcase – updated to iOS 7 but essentially gathering dust.
  • Flow. I’m really acclimated to the android way and find the lack of app addressability beyond what apple dictates to suck. That I can’t share content to any number of apps beyond apple’s very short list hurts. Intents are an amazingly powerful function of android and it’s hard to operate without them.
  • Camera. Damn this is a nice little shooter. I can easily flick the camera open from behind the screen lock- something android makes impossible with exchange security on! One hand use really comes into play as it’s super simple to grab a shot on the go. I snapped a few pics while biking yesterday in a reasonably safe manner and would have not considered this on android without first removing my exchange account or working through a more complex root based hack. Pictures look great of course and the gallery is super fast and a visible from the usual photo apps. I do miss being able to send via a reviewed pic … Again intents are amazing with android.
  • typing. While the keyboard is a bit cramped at first the screen is so damned responsive and the auto correct generally friendly that you can sweep through longer email, note or post (like this) very easily. I read over the weekend that the scene response time on iPhone is substantially greater than the current crop of android devices and typing – something I do constantly receives a huge boost!
  • battery. The battery is terrible on this phone though sadly I have such low expectations at this point. I’m at 60% now at 9:10am. Going to be impossible for this to last a full day without some intervention.

I got a fresh start on iOS 7 with the 5C and have to say it works great. There are many improvements though largely it’s just iOS. I like it.

I’m not really in the market for a new phone but see the 5C selling a zillion. My pic would be the 5S without even seeing it as I would want the extra power, better camera and I’m very interested in the motion sensor.

When the cloud fails

As much as I enjoy open access to my data and content of interest there have actually been a few recent circumstances where the cloud could simply not deliver. For the average person living in a well connected market with limited travel needs, streaming your data works great. What I’ve encountered though has made me consider a more aggressive local plan as well.

I just got back from vacation on the Adirondacks where connectivity is poor at best. During the drive up we lost connectivity briefly and then on arrival to our rental home, found ourselves on edge… And slow edge as well. The rental home has satellite connectivity from a company called Wild Blue so there was WiFi in the house but the inbound speed was mainly slower than the edge connection as well. Having such a slow connection requires you to make decisions about what you might want to do online as everything takes time which we essentially take for granted living the land of high speed broadband and 4G.

Using AppleTV for streaming Netflix … Not an option. Spotify … Not so much. Even downloading or trying to steam podcasts was a tricky or delayed affair. For the most part the lack of connectivity wasn’t horrible … In fact forcing the change can be quite nice. There are definitely times though when the connection posed an issue… Driving in the car lately I’ve been enjoying Waze. The realtime map data is awesome and quite helpful. When your connection drops however the app can not only be unreliable but the lost connection can actually make navigation impossible. Google Maps allows for pre-loading the area you want but without any real speed in your connection that’s also quite a challenge.

If you follow me on any of the social services you know I share a lot. At this point sharing is habitual and just part of my information flow. When your connection barely works though you have to make pretty regular decisions rather than more seamlessly flow things back out. My pictures backup to Facebook and Google+ but on edge the process takes hours (yes hours) to happen and then you need to have a much more restrained view if you want to share a gallery vs one or two pics at a time.

Even in more connected environments… Like Westchester where I live the connection can also pose a challenge. Just this morning, I fired up Waze while driving my kids to school. Because the signal was poor my location never activated and instead of a helpful look around, I got a floating look at the area because the phone could not lock things in. Up in the Adirondacks if the signal dropped long enough Waze would actually crash and even though it would want to restart my navigation without a network lock, it was rendered pretty useless as the map never loaded. The car nav BTW worked without any fuss… As did Sirius radio.

Back at home and commuting back and forth to NYC, I’m regularly in range of LTE and stream content, update my apps on the go and basically use my devices as they were designed.

Future trips are going to require me advanced planning so I can cache things I might need or want …

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Just playing around with the Galaxy S IV camera…

(update doesn’t look like the phone to wordpress share includes the animated image.  bummer)

Size Matters. Phablets Don’t. Hmmm

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According to Flurry’s data anyway …

I got hooked on the Note in a quick test at the office and bought the Note II soon thereafter. The larger format is amazing for consumption of content which I do somewhat continuously. In fact the Note II has tabled my desire for a tablet as another screen to carry / use. I’ve got access to the iPad 3, Mini and Nexus 7, but prefer to keep it all going on the Note II.

I’m really looking forward to the Galaxy S IV which will be at 5″ so smaller, but with an even higher resolution display. My guess is that the format will be ideal – highly pocketable + extremely powerful with a fantastic display for any type of content.

Anyway looks like Phablets even as many as have been sold are still low in total volume. Perhaps it’s just one of those things you have to use to believe.

Our Ambient Glanceable Future is Arriving now

I’ve written about the Pebble Smartwatch a few times now so it should be no secret to existing visitors that I’m a big fan.  At SXSW, I attended the Google Glass presentation and it was there that  the dots really started to connect for me … The key takeaway I found from the Glass presentation was that it’s designed to be transient in nature.  The goal is not to design content units that require longer fixed attention to consume, in fact much of what we saw was designed for either a quick glance or a quick reply.  This is very similar to the Pebble and I believe this really is how things are evolving – and for the better.

This past week I attended the NY Quantified Self Meetup where I shared some thoughts and observations on the current landscape and I see a natural progression to a more lightweight sense of the world around us.  Quantified self technologies are becoming mainstream.  As was noted in a recent QS blog post there are roughly 22 different things you can buy today in an Apple store which fall into the quantified self arena:

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Even more recently, Samsung announced quite an array of accessories for the upcoming Galaxy S IV:

Samsung S-Health

 

As you can in that slide, Samsung has a wrist band, heart rate monitor and scale all designed to be paired with the phone and its accompanying applications and services.  Given the volume of S III Sales (between 30 and 40 MM units to date) I think it’s reasonable to assume the next generation will be met with continued success.  This isn’t about the phone though it’s about the potential for reaching a scaled market with these measurement tools … and importantly how things like this can be played back to the user.

I see a natural progression here.  As people get accustomed to more readily understanding themselves, they are likely to seek a broader understanding and even control of the world around them … and this leads to more connected products and services.  Whether you are tracking your suitcase once it’s been checked, remotely unlocking your front door or even just having a fun family vacation at Disney, connectivity and the value of the data can provide comfort in knowledge or provide access to a higher level of service.

With my Pebble usage as a proxy, I can see how regular bite-size updates, suggested measurement times and general awareness of my world have provided a benefit.  As I noted recently

  1. I love having my phone on permanent silent.
  2. I love being able to quickly glance down to see what’s happening when I get a buzz on my wrist and getting just enough info to know whether I should take action or not.
  3. I love giving more attention back to the people I’m with rather feeling compelled to the phone.

I’m more connected to the world around me.  Literally.  I feel more able to focus in the moment more often.  While I’m certainly still looking to my phone or other screens, it’s with less urgency and I generally know what to expect, what I need to respond to and find few surprises when I unlock the screen.

The next phase of this will be more contextual and we are seeing this evolution in apps already with things like Friday that collect your activities to build a semantic timeline, Tempo and Sunrise adding helpful details like contact info and directions to our calendars, app integration with Foursquare, and Highlight etc.  With a little 3rd party assistance I’m actually getting quite a bit of this (not the iOS apps) pushed onto my Pebble.  As soon as I saw the details of Glass in that SXSW presentation, I saw the connection and got very excited.  Glass represents a very clear opportunity for this to be taken to the next level.  While the Pebble is really a great little device, it’s 1.0 and Glass even in its early state could take the perspective to 2.0.  I’m in no way suggestion or looking for a constant heads up display, but the transient, glanceable datastream on something like Glass seems like it would be incredible empowering.

I just wish I’d submitted a #ifihadglass entry.

 

3 (more) things to love about the @pebble

  1. I love having my phone on permanent silent.
  2. I love being able to quickly glance down to see what’s happening when I get a buzz on my wrist and getting just enough info to know whether I should take action or not.
  3. I love giving more attention back to the people I’m with rather feeling compelled to the phone.

Samsung’s HomeSync

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This is a rather interesting development from Samsung… It’s not GoogleTV, but it is an Android powered STB.

The device features WiFi, Bluetooth and Ethernet support, 2 USB 3.0 ports for peripherals, a micro USB port for connecting to a PC, and HDMI output for hooking up a TV or monitor. Under the hood, the HomeSync is running software based on Google Android Jelly Bean, which means you can use it to watch movies on the hard drive or stream videos from YouTube, among other things. It also includes access to the Google Play Store, which should let you download additional apps such as Netflix or Vudu to turn the HomeSync into a pretty powerful media center for your TV. via liliputing