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Amazon's Echo Show displays your smart camera's live video feed
Amazon's Echo Show is getting another new trick, err, skill. Now the gizmo will link with the cameras on your home network and display their respective feeds when you say something like, "Alexa, show the front door." A press release notes that this will work with cameras from Amcrest, Arlo, August, EZViz, IC Realtime, Ring, Nest and Vivint. And if you don't have a Show, saying the command phrase will soon give you an audio feed on your Dot or Echo. Better yet, Amazon has released the camera control API into the wild so developers can start cracking on even more implementations for it.
Mercedes-Benz and Vivint want to power your solar home
Tesla has been dominating home energy headlines in recent months, what with the release of its solar roof panels and residential batteries, but Elon Musk's company isn't the only one getting into the home energy game. Mercedez-Benz announced on Thursday that it is teaming with solar-energy company Vivint to develop an all-in-one solar/battery setup of its own.
Switched On: Extra Sensory Perception
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. At Intel's CES 2012 press conference, the giant chipmaker justified calling thin notebook PCs "ultrabooks" by noting how the devices would increasingly be characterized by more than their thinness. The integration of sensors has become so core to the modern smartphone experience that their absence would make using such devices untenable.Most of that differentiation was based on plans to integrate the kinds of sensors that have become commonplace in smartphones and tablets, sensors that can detect location, motion, orientation and proximity. The integration of sensors has become so core to the modern smartphone experience that their absence would make using such devices untenable. Imagine if we had to manually reorient a display every time we wanted to play a game or take a photo or if we had to avoid activating a button with our cheeks when holding a phone against them.But as Switched On discussed in taking on how screen size affects form factors, what is a limitation of form factor today may not hold true tomorrow. Already, of course, smartphones can tap into remote intelligence for applications such as remote camera viewing or unlocking of doors via services from home security companies such as ADT and Vivint. From around the world, you can even remotely start a vehicle using the Viper SmartStart app. But there are increasing opportunities for smartphones to act on information from sensors that are not embedded into their shells.
APX Alarm becomes Vivint as it expands into Z-Wave home automation
Heard of APX Alarm Security Solution? Probably not. But that's ok, it's par for the course when discussing home automation, a market segment mostly ignored by the big boys of consumer electronics. Today APX is making a grand entrance into home automation thanks to a $443 million investment by Goldman Sachs. The company's new lineup of Z-Wave-based automatic door locks, video surveillance, lighting and small appliance controls will be sold under the new Vivint identity. Better yet, the new Z-Wave modules are designed to work with the APX Go!control alarm panels already purchased by some 170,000 customers, according to APX. Look for products to be generally available on March 1st.
