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Hive's smart home devices finally work with HomeKit
A handful of Hive's smart home devices finally work with HomeKit.
Hive takes its classy Home View security camera outdoors
Stylish isn't the first word that springs to mind when you think of connected security cameras. But Hive is striving to change that by adopting the style and substance route pioneered by Alphabet's Nest. The UK-based smart home company's latest device is the Hive View outdoor camera -- a twin to its eye-catching indoor snapper -- that continues its collaborative streak with serial consultant Yves Béhar.
Hive's new home monitoring camera isn't bound to its base
Hive is a relatively well-known smart home brand in the UK. It all started with a connected thermostat released back in 2013, endorsed by nationwide utility provider British Gas. Not long after that seal of approval, British Gas acquired the company behind the thermostat, and now the Hive range includes motion sensors, lightbulbs, smart plugs and a water leak detector. Last year, the Hive brand crossed the pond in hope of breaking into North America, and what better way to start 2018 than launch a new product in all markets simultaneously for the first time? That brings us to the new Hive View home monitoring camera: An attempt to balance style and feature set to stand out from the crowd.
American military backs an entirely new kind of processor
Virtually every processor you see is based on the same basic (Von Neumann) computing model: they're designed to access large chunks of sequential data and fill their caches as often as possible. This isn't the quickest way to accomplish every task, however, and the American military wants to explore an entirely different kind of chip. DARPA is spending $80 million to fund the development of the world's first graph analytic processor. The HIVE (Hierarchical Identify Verify Exploit) accesses random, 8-byte data points from the system's global memory, crunching each of those points individually. That's a much faster approach for handling large data, which frequently involves many relationships between info sets. It's also extremely scalable, so you can use as many HIVE chips as you need to accomplish your goals.
Hive takes on Hue with colour-changing light bulbs
In its bid to kit out Britain's homes with tech-centric appliances, British Gas' Hive has launched a wide range of internet-ready products. There's the all-important smart thermostat, plugs, home sensors and, more recently, Hive Active Lights. These smart bulbs can be controlled via the Hive app and interact directly with the Hive Hub, but customers have only been able to buy the standard dimmable white light. That changes today, after the company added two new bulbs to its Active Light line-up, putting Philips' Hue in its sights.
Hive's smart thermostat gets IFTTT's recipe-based automation
If you own one of Hive's smart thermostats and are looking to get more from the connected appliance, today is your lucky day. The British Gas-owned company today announced that it's teamed up with IFTTT to provide recipe-based automation for the thermostat, allowing you to connect it to 300 other products and services.
Hive adds smart lightbulbs to its connected home lineup
British Gas' connected home brand Hive expanded beyond smart thermostats to plugs and motion sensors earlier this year. As was always the plan, the product range has grown a little bigger today with the launch of Hive Active Lights. These smart bulbs are controlled via the existing Hive app for iOS, Android and Windows Phone, and since they talk directly to your router through the Hive Hub, can be fiddled with anywhere you have an internet connection. In addition to on/off and dimming commands, you can also create schedules if, say, you want your lights to come on at night while you're away on your summer hols.
British Gas' Boiler IQ will text you before it breaks down
While smart thermostats (supposedly) enable you to intelligently heat your homes and potentially save money, they only replace the dumb controls you had previously. Your boiler, the focal point of all the pipes that run across your home, hasn't really enjoyed the same level of innovation. British Gas, maker of the Hive thermostat and various smart home sensors, believes it can change that with the launch of "Boiler IQ," a new technology that can self-identify issues and alert engineers of a possible fault before things get really bad.
Hive feels the heat after smart thermostat glitch
The Internet of Things can be a wondrous thing -- it allows you to operate your lights using an app, remotely monitor your house and, when it works, intelligently warm it. This last weekend, some owners of the Hive smart thermostat experienced what it's like when the Internet of Things goes bad when an app glitch resulted in their homes being heated to as high as 32℃.
Hive begins selling its smart plug and connected home sensors
When British Gas subsidiary Hive unveiled its latest take on the smart thermostat, the company also committed to launching a new a range of motion sensors, lightbulbs and a smart plug. It's taken six months, but Hive is finally ready to add its Active Plug and Window and Door sensors to its connected home line-up, with all three products now available to buy online.
Meet Hive's gorgeous new thermostat and smart home devices
Google's Nest, Honeywell, Netatmo, Tado and others have made heating our abodes that bit simpler, but a smart thermostat does not a smart home make. British Gas' Hive launched its take on the smart thermostat two years ago -- and now, 200,000 installs later, it's time for a sequel. This time around, though, Hive doesn't just want to make your heating smarter, but the rest of your home as well. In addition to its brand-new £249 thermostat, the Hive brand will include soon smart plugs, a whole host of motion sensors and eventually, lightbulbs too.
Surviving a British winter with a not-so-smart thermostat
Just under a year ago, I had British Gas' Hive smart thermostat bolted on to my home's existing aged central heating system. The easiest thing to do would have been to just review it there and then, but if I'm being honest, it makes more sense to talk about a device like this when you've used it through a rough British winter. Having now endured one in my drafty, freezing cold Victorian house, I think it's the perfect time to start discussing it.
British Gas buys AlertMe, the company behind its Hive thermostat
Although there's an abundance of companies now offering smart thermostats, it's British Gas' Hive product that holds the top spot in the UK. The controller, which has now been installed in over 150,000 homes, relies on automation algorithms and mobile apps to keep people warm, all with a little help from a company called AlertMe. Not content with a 21 percent share in its partner, British Gas is spending big: it's just confirmed that it's paid £44 million to buy AlertMe, with the grand plan of launching its heating and automation products worldwide.
Smart everything: Behind Hive's plans to automate your entire home
When British Gas' Hive entered the connected home space a year ago, smart thermostats were still an emergent technology. The energy provider joined a small number of manufacturers, promising to change the way you heated your home with a mix of complex automation algorithms and slick mobile apps. Fast forward to today: While Brits have embraced smart thermostats from Nest, Tado, Climote, Netatmo and Honeywell, it's Hive that has enjoyed more of a significant uptake than most. Today, the subsidiary is claiming that its controller is now the most popular smart heating solution in the UK, having been installed in over 100,000 homes.
Nest strikes deal with npower to offer its smart thermostat for just £99
Now that the Nest learning thermostat on sale in the UK, the Google-owned company is pulling out all of the stops to make it your go-to smart heating controller. Today, it buddied up with its first European energy supplier to give Britons a more cost-effective solution (at least for now) to British Gas' own Hive thermostat. npower, Nest's partner in crime, is incentivising customers to switch over to its new dual-fuel tariffs (which fix energy prices until April 30th 2017) by offering a Nest for just £99 installed. That's £100 less than the Hive and a third of the price of a standalone unit (with support) ordered from npower direct. You can, of course, still pick one up for £179 on Nest's own website and Amazon, or online and in-store at Apple, John Lewis and B&Q, but it'll be down to you to install it and make sure it works as it should.
British Gas' smart Hive thermostat can now respond to a home owner's location
Since its launch nearly seven months ago, British Gas' connected thermostat, the Hive, has enjoyed steady succcess. Now operational in more 75,000 British homes, it recently gained another competitor in Nest, the learning thermostat now owned by Google, so news of the company's new feature rollout could not have come at better time. In an iOS update that went live earlier this week (not yet live on Android), British Gas added geolocation support to the Hive app, allowing users to receive notifications or set triggers depending on where they are. For instance, Hive owners now receive alerts when the heating has been left switched on and they leave the house, or set the app to automatically begin heating the house as soon as it detects the owner has left their workplace. Nest owners can utilise similar features with a little third-party hacking, but for people who decided to go smart with the energy provider will get them right out of the box.
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PC tabletop adaptation Hive swarms Steam for its queen
Tabletop games are pretty great, but losing pieces or having to play with faraway friends over video calls can be less than ideal. Digital adaptations with online mulitplayer solve both of these problems, as is the case with Hive, Blueline Games' translation of the Mensa Select board game. In Hive, players swear allegiance to a queen and use their mess of bugs to surround the ruler of an opposing army. A turn consists of moving one bug to a new space. Each of the hexagonal pieces in play must be touching at least one other however, so no, you can't just gradually move your queen to a table corner while advancing the rest of your arsenal. Each species has its own movement attribute, so cunning unit placement is crucial to victory. Ants can move to any open position on the outer ridge of the board, while the spider can venture exactly three spaces per turn. Grasshoppers can jump over any straight line of creepy-crawlies, but the one-space-per-turn beetles can climb on top of units from either team, allowing for a slow-but-straight shot for the opposing queen. You can also move the queen itself one space per turn. Hive has made its nest on Steam for PC users and is currently on sale for $7.99, down from its normal price of $9.99. There's also DLC for the Pillbug, a critter that can pick up adjoining pieces and move them, regardless of which queen they serve. If your friends know better than to challenge your tactics, Hive also has AI opponents with five levels of difficulty, depending on the aptitude of your strategery. [Image: Blueline Games]
British Gas introduces Hive Active Heating, enables remote thermostat control
Home automation isn't just the domain of hackers, Kickstarter projects and startups anymore -- now utilities companies are getting in on the action, too. British Gas has recently announced Hive Active Control Heating, its platform for automated, scheduled and remote utility control. Opting into the program costs £199 and includes a wireless thermostat with a receiver and hub, all of which can be controlled by a companion app (or an online dashboard). The system doesn't have the learning capabilities of the synonymously named Nest, but users can manage temperature on the go, create scheduled heating events by weekday or hour and manage hot water temperate and scheduling independent of thermostat control. Hive is available for pre-order now, though installations won't begin until late October. In the meantime, the company has offered a preview of the system's app on the project's website (source) and has issued a few flowery statements about the Internet of things (after the break).
SpiderOak unveils Hive, a streamlined file service with '100-percent' privacy
A new cloud-based file system from SpiderOak looks to challenge the likes of Dropbox with a bigger emphasis on privacy. Those familiar with SpiderOak know that the company has been offering a "100-percent private" file environment for some time; the company can't view any information about the files you upload, whereas other file-sharing sites can access users' data. The just-announced service, dubbed Hive, merges that encryption cred with a simplified interface. Hive utilizes one main folder for dragging and dropping files, and it automatically syncs data across your devices. Files, meanwhile, can be shared with friends or colleagues as links. The latest update to the SpiderOak mobile app integrates with Hive to let you manage and view data; the Android version will leave beta on May 13th. As Hive is connected to the company's broader file service, it follows the same pricing plan: 2GB free or 100GB for $10 a month. For a limited time, though, new users can get 5GB when they sign up and download the app. Click through to the source link for more info.
Bungie files trademark apps for Glimmer, Fallen, Hive, Cabal, Vex
Bungie is on the hunt for intellectual property, filing trademark applications for five ideas: Glimmer, Fallen, Hive, Cabal and Vex. Filed on March 11 and spotted by Gamespot, each word seeks protection for a range of products, including video games, novels (graphic and classic), Halloween costumes, clothing, action figures, television and movies.Bungie, of course, is working on Destiny, a persistent-world console shooter with RPG elements. Destiny will come to the PlayStation 4 alongside the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, sometime not in 2013.
