Monday, February 18, 2019
By John Voket
From high-tech toilets to beds that monitor your sleeping pattern, there's never a lull in new in-home technology. Below are a few more sizzling smart home scores unveiled at CES - Las Vegas' annual gathering place for all those who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. Brad Moon at investorplace.com says he saw countless companies putting Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri and Bixby in everything from beds to toilets, observing that 2019 is shaping up to be the year that virtual assistants are literally everywhere in the home.
Katie Collins at cnet.com was drawn to Urban Canopee, which wants to retrofit cities with plants by growing them over the roofs of buildings or other spaces. This innovative company creates canopies for climbing plants that are grown over lightweight, adaptable and flexible frames, which either stand alone or can be placed together in modules to allow the plants to weave together to form a leafy ceiling.
Sensors within the frames and the plant pots allow the hydration levels of the plants and the temperature under the canopy to monitored remotely via an app. A solar kit and an intelligent, connected irrigation system operate autonomously to water the plants.
James Peckham at techradar.com discovered the first fully operating prototype for the Foldimate laundry-folder.
You manually insert items of clothing into the Foldimate by clipping them in, but that's all you'll need to do.
About five seconds later the machine spits them out at the bottom and makes a bell noise when it's complete. The company is hoping for a "late 2019" launch date, but at nearly a grand, this is only a nice to have if you really hate folding laundry!
Peckham's colleague Cat Ellis explored McAfee's new Secure Home Platform with voice command for Google Assistant, which will enable you to keep track of your whole network without fiddling with software and app interfaces.
Ellis says Secure Home Platform will come built into routers and gateways, and will let you perform security checks using spoken commands. Shailaja Shankar, McAfee’s general manager for mobile and ISP business units said Home Platform Actions for the Google Assistant, "empowers consumers with an easy way to manage their home’s network security using their voice.”
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