Point: Keeping an eye on your home with electronic ears
When it comes to home security, sometimes those little webcams can be a little too obtrusive. For example, let's say that you share your home via AirBnB -- do you really want to see your guests walking around in bathrobes (or less)? Likewise, the guests might not like having the all-seeing webcams staring at them all the time. Well, a couple of Swedish entrepreneurs -- one with a long history of design work at Apple -- have just the solution. Point (US$79 pre-order price) is a Kickstarter campaign aimed at creating an inexpensive home monitor designed to listen for important events, then tell you when something is going on via an app.
As co-founder and CEO of Form Devices Nils Mattisson (ex-Apple) notes, "Peace of mind when you're away from home shouldn't have to mean cameras at the dinner table." The Point device listens for ambient sounds, can sense smoke particles in the air, and informs you when events like windows breaking, alarms going off, or guests coming into a home occur.
The small round connected device can be set up to respond to events based on rules that you set up. If guests are partying too loudly, it can glow yellow to remind them to keep things quiet. A loud noise at night can act as a trigger for Point to light up, hopefully scaring off would-be burglars.
Point features integration with IFTTT so that you can create your own notification mashups with other sensors, and is powered by batteries so it can be installed just about anywhere.
The Kickstarter campaign kicked off on Tuesday and has already surpassed its US$50,000 goal with four weeks to go. Supporters can expect to get their Points in July of 2015.
