By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
Best Buy recently outfitted a four story townhouse in downtown Toronto with various connected home and Internet of Things appliances designed around security, monitoring, remote-control and convenience. Bringing together various vendors like Nest, Canary, Piper, Swann, Arlo, Myfox, Philips, Playbulb, August, Chamberlain, Rachio and others, the big box retailer demoed how these smart home devices work independently and together.
Smart home and Internet of Things appliances, mostly connected to cloud services and accessible via mobile apps, have been around for a number of years now. The biggest issue faced by consumers is that until now, most of these devices and systems worked independently and end users needed to install an app for each device to be controlled.
What was demonstrated at the demo event was how various of these smart home appliances can work together through simple extensible controls. For example, a Nest smart smoke detector can trigger Philips Hue lights to flash red in the event of a smoke or fire alarm, which can aid children and people with hearing deficiencies to react accordingly.
While there were many connected smart home devices to monitor and control water sprinklers, thermostat, indoor and outdoor security cameras as well as smart switches that turn appliances on and off, there were also standalone devices like the Canary wireless security system, which has a day and night camera, motion detector and sensors for air quality and temperature to give users a convenient all-in-one solution.
The products that impressed me the most during my walk through were the new Netgear Arlo wireless outdoor cameras that were also waterproof. The August Smart locks, which enable people to use their smartphones to unlock doors (ideal for when you need to control access, say if friends or family are visiting and you're not home), the Chamberlain smart garage door opener system as well as MyFox smart alarms and security cameras. There are definitely various choices for interested smart home device buyers out there today and best of all, they are mostly easy to install and are DIY friendly.