Article
Touchscreen-enabled routers double as home automation hubs | Engadget
From the horse’s mouth
Securifi
Almond routers
My Comments
Previous, if you were to integrate home automations or the “Internet Of Everything” to your home network, you had to use a separate “bridge” device for sensor devices that worked with Zigbee or Z-Wave. Most of these devices worked as a control surface for these devices such as showing their current status or turning appliances on at certain times or in response to certain events.
Now Securifi have built up the latest iteration of their Almond series touch-controlled routers and integrated Zigbee in them and Z-Wave in the Almond+ premium version. Both these devices can be set up to work as wireless access points or range extenders as well as routers.
They have the ability to show the current state of nominated sensors or allow you to control the sensors from the router’s touchscreen. But they also have a time-switch functionality or triggered functionality so that an appliance can come on or off according to certain conditions. These use the application-based standards associated with Zigbee and Z-Wave which is on an open-frame basis.
As well, Securifi have been working on iOS and Android apps that provide the ability to manage the home-automation ability from your smartphone’s or tablet’s screen. This may mean that you can check whether that heater in your room was actually on using your iPhone’s display and turn it off remotely as you are getting in your car rather than run in to check that it is off as I have seen before. As well, you could avoid having to glance in that rear-view mirror as you drive out slowly from home to check if that garage door is closing properly. Securifi could extend the Almond app to work with the iOS and Android in-car, wearable and voice-assistant functionalities in order to show the various status reports on your dashboard or smartwatch or allow you to ask Siri or Google Now the current status of various appliances.
Could this be a chance for router manufacturers to integrate the home-automation hub functionality in some of their products? Here, it could open up the path for more of the smart-home ideas to come across for most people and reduce the need for extra boxes to be part of your home network.
