<rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"><channel><title>choicetechnology</title><description>choicetechnology</description><link>https://www.choicetechnology.co.nz/blog</link><item><title>Automate Your Home with the Echo Show!</title><description><![CDATA[Amazon has finally announced the long-awaited Echo Show - the first of Amazon's popular Echo products to feature a screen. The Show is due to be released to US customers on the 28th of June and we couldn't be more excited.We reckon the Echo Show will be the home automation product of 2017, as it will combine the power of Echo's advanced speech recognition capabilities with the ability to see, as well as hear, responses to your commands.At Choice Technology we love home automation, but we hate<img src="http://static.wixstatic.com/media/53709e_04dee2fb35e7426389cb687a5ff5fe45%7Emv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_300%2Ch_290/53709e_04dee2fb35e7426389cb687a5ff5fe45%7Emv2.jpg"/>]]></description><link>https://www.choicetechnology.co.nz/single-post/2017/05/10/Automate-Your-Home-with-the-Echo-Show</link><guid>https://www.choicetechnology.co.nz/single-post/2017/05/10/Automate-Your-Home-with-the-Echo-Show</guid><pubDate>Tue, 09 May 2017 16:40:28 +0000</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div><img src="http://static.wixstatic.com/media/53709e_04dee2fb35e7426389cb687a5ff5fe45~mv2.jpg"/><div>Amazon has finally announced the long-awaited <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01J24C0TI">Echo Show</a> - the first of Amazon's popular Echo products to feature a screen. The Show is due to be released to US customers on the 28th of June and we couldn't be more excited.</div><div>We reckon the Echo Show will be the home automation product of 2017, as it will combine the power of Echo's advanced speech recognition capabilities with the ability to see, as well as hear, responses to your commands.</div><div>At Choice Technology we love home automation, but we hate the idea of having to use your mobile to control all aspects of your home. Why bother pulling out your mobile, unlocking it and fumbling around for the right app and on-screen buttons to turn on the lights? All this faffing about defeats the purpose of home automation!</div><div>With Amazon Echo and Echo Dot we can already add speech recognition and voice commands to our home automation set-up. With the Echo Show we will be able to do so much more.</div><div>Check out the Echo Show launch video - it's cheesy, but it provides an excellent overview of what the Show can do:</div><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WQqxCeHhmeU"/><div>What's Possible?</div><div>Because all Echo products are programmable and support powerful integrations with products such as <a href="https://ifttt.com/">IFFT,</a> the possibilities are endless. If you can imagine it then we can probably implement it. </div><div>Here are just a few examples of what's possible with this amazing new device ('Alexa' is the 'wake up' word for the Echo):</div><div><div>'Alexa, show me who's at the door' - live camera image appears on screen</div><div>'Alexa, open the garage door and start the intercom' - the garage door opens and a live video chat begins between you and whoever's entering the garage</div><div>'Alexa, show me the status of the bedroom lights' - great for checking whether the kids have turned off their lights without having to leave the comfort of the couch. Follow up with 'Alexa, turn off the kid's lights' if required.</div><div>'Alexa, show me YouTube videos on making sangria' - vital help in the kitchen when you need it!</div></div><div>All Amazon Echo products feature advanced speech recognition, but not all interactions have to be instigated by you. We can also configure your home automation system to trigger the Echo Show automatically in response to a wide range of events. For example, we can configure it to automatically:</div><div>Welcome you home, tell you how great you are and play a video upon your arrival. Perfect for those living alone who could use a bit of company and a pep me up.Show you a camera feed when motion is detected in a given area, such as the pool area, for example.Alert you if you're tagged in a Facebook photo and show the photo on-screen. Some may call it vain. We won't judge you.</div><div>Just like the Echo, the Echo Show has a very respectable pair of stereo speakers for its size, so it's also excellent for playing audio in any room of the house. Get the party started with a command like 'Alexa, play my house party playlist'.</div><div>Alexa Calling</div><div>Amazon also announced today Alexa Calling, which provides free voice and video calling between Echo devices, including Android or Apple phones running the Alexa App. When combined with the Echo Show, this provides the tantalising prospect of being able to video call family or friends just by saying so.</div><div>'Alexa, call mum' and away you go!</div><div>We suspect that other popular communications platforms (WhatsApp, Skype, Google Hangouts, etc.) will come to the Echo Show over time. Time will tell how Alexa Calling will hold up against these much larger platforms, but until then it's free and oh-so-easy to use.</div><div>Availability</div><div>The Echo Show is due for launch in the US on the 28th of June. We already have a dozen or so on pre-order for customers (plus a couple for ourselves, of course) and we expect to take delivery in mid July (subject to stock availability).</div><div>Please note that, as with other Amazon Echo products, the Echo Show is parallel imported, which means that some localisation features don't work natively in New Zealand. If want to know the time, for example, you'll need to specify the location (e.g. 'Alexa, what's the time in Auckland, new Zealand?') This is a minor consideration considering the incredible functionality that the Echo products bring to your home automation solution.</div><div>Amazon is launching an Australian store in 2018, so we anticipate the Echo products supporting Australian and New Zealand locales in the not too distant future.</div><div>Get In Now!</div><div>Contact <a href="http://www.choicetechnology.co.nz/">Choice Technology</a> today for pricing and availability and to find out how the Echo Show can revolutionise your home automation system.</div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Home Automation Level:  Jedi</title><description><![CDATA[We've been teaming the Amazon Echo with building automation solutions for a while now to provide clients with the ultimate in convenience and bragging rights. With Echo clients can control just about any aspect of your building automation solution with spoken commands.Echo is inexpensive and amazingly accurate. It's also extensible, meaning we can create 'recipes' to do just about anything.Imagine, for example, that it's time for bed and you want to turn off all of the lights and lock all the<img src="http://static.wixstatic.com/media/53709e_8638aeec9fa44ba9b889e482103829e7%7Emv2.png/v1/fill/w_157%2Ch_197/53709e_8638aeec9fa44ba9b889e482103829e7%7Emv2.png"/>]]></description><link>https://www.choicetechnology.co.nz/single-post/2016/11/26/Home-Automation-Level-Jedi</link><guid>https://www.choicetechnology.co.nz/single-post/2016/11/26/Home-Automation-Level-Jedi</guid><pubDate>Fri, 25 Nov 2016 19:05:28 +0000</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div><div>We've been teaming the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Echo-Bluetooth-Speaker-with-WiFi-Alexa/dp/B00X4WHP5E">Amazon Echo</a> with building automation solutions for a while now to provide clients with the ultimate in convenience and bragging rights. With Echo clients can control just about any aspect of your building automation solution with spoken commands.</div><div>Echo is inexpensive and amazingly accurate. It's also extensible, meaning we can create 'recipes' to do just about anything.</div><img src="http://static.wixstatic.com/media/53709e_8638aeec9fa44ba9b889e482103829e7~mv2.png"/><div>Imagine, for example, that it's time for bed and you want to turn off all of the lights and lock all the doors. Forget walking around the house and doing so - that's so 2010! Simply say 'Alexa' to wake Echo up and then tell it 'Night Mode' and that's it!</div><div>More about Echo and how we use it to provide smart building automation solutions in a later post. For now here's something that's even cooler - controlling your home or office using nothing but your Jedi powers.</div><div>Sphero, makers of the truly excellent <a href="http://www.sphero.com/sphero">Sphero robot</a>(my kids have the <a href="http://www.sphero.com/sprk-plus">Sphero SPRK+</a>, which is fun and educational), have just added support for <a href="https://ifttt.com/">IFTTT</a> to their Force Band product (pictured left), which means we can now use the Force Band to control just about anything around your home.</div><div>First let's look at some of the cool things we can do with Force Band, then we'll explain what some of the components are.</div><div>In our testing we found the ability to control our <a href="http://www.choicetechnology.co.nz/smartbuildings">SmartBuildings</a> with Force Band too cool for words. I don't know if we'll ever get tired of closing the curtains using force push, but I doubt it. As cool as it is, however, Force Band is a toy and not only will you have to fight your kids for it, you'll also find it's only worthwhile for fun and novelty value when it comes to building automation. But fun it is indeed!</div><div>Force Band Gestures</div><div>Force Band supports a wide range of gestures with BB8, allowing you to drive forward or in reverse, steer and control velocity. With IFTTT Force Band provides just three gestures for you to work with, these are:</div><div><div>Force Push - Jedi push away from your body</div><div>Force Pull - pull it in like a Jedi master</div><div>Force Stop - only works when 'push' or 'pull' have been activated. We didn't find 'stop' very useful, but we'll find more uses for it with a bit of practice.</div></div><div>Recipes</div><div>Each of the Force Band gestures above are used to trigger IFTTT recipes that you write, meaning there is a practically limitless number of actions that you can perform in response to your push, pull or stop gestures.</div><div>IFTTT not only works with a huge number of platforms, it also allows you to write recipes that are as long or as short as you like. </div><div>Here are just a few of the recipes that we tried out with Force Band and the Samsung <a href="https://www.smartthings.com/">SmartThings</a> controller:</div><div><div>Change building mode from 'Day' to 'Night' and from 'Occupied' to 'Secure'. It was pretty cool watching the lights turn off, the doors lock, motion sensors turn on and cameras spring into action as a result of a simple force push.</div><div>Close and open the curtains. Simply the best Jedi experience these nerds have had yet. There is a wee lag between the force push and the curtains starting to move, but it was still the coolest.</div>Silence the devices! Well, silence Spotify to be exact. Ok, we can't lie, we liked to pretend we were Vader strangling Admiral Motti into silence!</div><div>You can even use Force Band to perform <a href="https://ifttt.com/eve_for_tesla">automated actions with your Tesla</a>, although we haven't managed to get a new Tesla past the funding committee yet, so we haven't been able to test this ourselves yet.</div><div>IFTTT</div><div>IF This Then That is the glue that we use to combine different products (such as your SmartThings hub and various home automation devices) to automate them and make them work together. IFTTT isn't just for home automation - it works with hundreds of devices and applications and can be used in millions of different ways.</div><div>Today we're going to look at how it works with Force Band, but we'll cover IFTTT in more detail in a future column.</div><div>Sphero Force Band</div><div>Force Band was released by Sphero in 2015 to control the <a href="http://www.sphero.com/starwars/bb8">Sphero BB8</a>, which has to be the all-time coolest Star Wars toy of all time.</div><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8GGYO5vdrnI"/><div>Like BB8 and all of the other Sphero products mentioned in this article, Force Band pairs with your smartphone via Bluetooth, allowing it to communicate with BB8 (and now IFTTT) via your smartphone.</div><div>This does mean that your smartphone has to be within Bluetooth proximity of Force Band at all times, but we found the connection between phone and Force Band to be responsive and reliable.</div><div>Being a toy, you will struggle to fit the Force Band on most adult wrists, so we had to improvise a little (little miss 10 lent us her scrunchy for this scientific endeavour), but this is a good thing. As much as we enjoyed geeking out over the Force Band (and living out a few of our Jedi fantasies), we were glad to not have the temptation to leave it on permanently.</div><div>The Verdict</div><div>Like other Sphero products, the Force Band, is innovative and fun for kids and adults alike. Like other Sphero products, however, the Force Band is only good for the fun and novelty value, so the Echo doesn't have to worry about it's position as king of the building automation hill just yet.</div><div>The Force Band is just so much fun though. With Christmas coming up we'd definitely consider buying the kids a BB8 with Force Band 'for the kids' so we can live out some more of our Jedi fantasies. </div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>SmartBuildings 101:  The Hub</title><description><![CDATA[At the foundation of every SmartBuilding is the smart building hub. The hub controls all of the building's smart devices and provides the user interface to you let you monitor and control those devices. And to automate your building. Until recently these hubs were expensive, complex and proprietary. Over the past 2 - 3 years there has been a proliferation of inexpensive, easy to use hubs and this is what's driving the explosion in smart buildings now. There are dozens of good hub products on the<img src="http://static.wixstatic.com/media/53709e_9f8eaa7a05f7475182f1402e9fc0078c%7Emv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_263%2Ch_198/53709e_9f8eaa7a05f7475182f1402e9fc0078c%7Emv2.jpg"/>]]></description><link>https://www.choicetechnology.co.nz/single-post/2016/11/18/SmartBuildings-101-The-Hub</link><guid>https://www.choicetechnology.co.nz/single-post/2016/11/18/SmartBuildings-101-The-Hub</guid><pubDate>Thu, 17 Nov 2016 23:59:10 +0000</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div><img src="http://static.wixstatic.com/media/53709e_9f8eaa7a05f7475182f1402e9fc0078c~mv2.jpg"/><div>At the foundation of every SmartBuilding is the smart building hub. The hub controls all of the building's smart devices and provides the user interface to you let you monitor and control those devices. And to automate your building. Until recently these hubs were expensive, complex and proprietary. Over the past 2 - 3 years there has been a proliferation of inexpensive, easy to use hubs and this is what's driving the explosion in smart buildings now.</div><div> There are dozens of good hub products on the market, but our favourite by far is the Samsung SmartThings Hub, so we're going to use this as our example today. (We're not paid to like the Samsung hub, by the way - it will only be our favourite until something better comes along!)</div><div> The hub needs to communicate with your smart devices wirelessly, so it needs to be installed centrally, but otherwise it can be hidden from view.</div><div> Powered smart devices (i.e. those that are plugged in, rather than those that run on batteries) act as 'repeaters'. These relay signals from the hub to other, further away, devices. With a bit of careful planning you can cover a building of any size.</div><img src="http://static.wixstatic.com/media/53709e_f08fc1f929d2430eb3495c54202a1fc7~mv2.png"/><div>The SmartThings hub is compatible with hundreds of smart devices from Samsung and dozens of other manufacturers. We'll take a look at many of these devices in future columns. One of the best features of the SmartThings hub, however, is it's support for third party services such as IFTTT and Amazon Echo (see below) that let you make buildings really smart.  Let's take a closer look.</div><div>SmartThings Interfaces</div><div>Smartphone App</div><div>Like most hubs, SmartThings comes with its own smartphone app. This is the app that you use to configure SmartThings, to configure and monitor your devices and to perform simple automations.  The SmartThings app, which is available for Android and iOS, provides a dashboard that provides an overview of the status of your home or office and you can configure this status to change automatically based on criteria you define. If a door is opened in 'Unoccupied' mode, for example, you could configure SmartThings to consider this to be an exception (i.e. an intrusion may have occurred) and to take predefined actions (e.g. turn on all of the lights and send you an alert).</div><img src="http://static.wixstatic.com/media/53709e_62ac9a30425841a4b1bd246f20240452~mv2.png"/><div> Using the smartphone app you can also configure modes for each room. For example, if you switch to 'Night' mode you could configure lights and heating to come on and the curtains to close. Modes can change automatically. We use presence sensors, which our clients attach to their key rings. SmartThings recognises these as the client arrives and changes the mode from 'Away' to 'Present' (for example). The doors unlock, alarms are disabled, lights come on and other actions are taken automatically.</div><div>SmartTiles</div><div>SmartTiles is a brilliant, touch-screen interface for the SmartThings hub. Developed by Alex Malikov and Terry Gauchat, SmartTiles is one of the most compelling reasons to choose the SmartThings hub - and it isn't even made by Samsung.</div><img src="http://static.wixstatic.com/media/53709e_1c62cb1732714a44bfaab44efcde402e~mv2.png"/><div>With SmartTiles you can have as many touch-screens as you like around your building and they let you monitor and control just about anything. Want to see who's at the door and let them in? No problem - just jab a couple of buttons on the touch screen and it's done. Even better, SmartTiles can be used from just about anywhere, so you can monitor and control your building from the next room or from the other side of the world.</div><div>Amazon Echo</div><div>The Echo is the voice-controlled assistant that you never knew you needed. And you thought Amazonjust sold books! </div><img src="http://static.wixstatic.com/media/53709e_05359f5002f34a8ca9df45d100611667~mv2.jpg"/><div>The Echo provides amazingly accurate voice recognition and can perform hundreds of tasks from the whimsical (singing you happy birthday) to theuseful (making calendar entries, providing the weather forecast, telling you what the time is in Timbuktu). For a full description of the Echo's many powers, check out Amazon's web site. The Echo Dot (pictured right) is a smaller version designed to give you Echo coverage throughout your smart building.</div><img src="http://static.wixstatic.com/media/53709e_ad90e9e7c92e4f7f92a209a564396da9~mv2.jpg"/><div>Combined with the SmartThings hub and IFTTT the Echo becomes a powerful, extendable, voice recognition system for monitoring and controlling our smart buildings. This is not only really cool, it's completely transformative.</div><div>As much as we love our smartphones, it can be a drag to have to find your phone, unlock it and fire up an app just to turn on the lights. With the Echo we can create 'recipes' that allow us to do just about anything just by saying so. Instead of fumbling in the dark for your phone, for example, we just say 'Alexa, lounge lights on' and hey presto! Truly amazing stuff. ('Alexa' is the 'wake word' for Amazon Echo).</div><div>IFTTT</div><div>If This Then That (IFTTT) is the magic sauce that allows us to integrate your smart home or office with just about anything. IFTTT can be a bit hard to describe, but it makes perfect sense when you see it in action. It's a web-based service that allows us to write 'recipes' that can interact with a dizzying array of physical and virtual things. Within reason, if you can imagine it, we can do it with IFTTT. Here just a few of the IFTTT recipes that we've written and implemented for clients:</div><div>Office door unlocks, the air conditioning and lighting turn on and security systems turn off when staff members arrive at the office (carrying a presence sensor on their key ring).Office switches to 'Night Mode' at a specified time. The doors lock, lights go into 'motion sensor' mode (i.e. so they're off when no one's there) and the company owner is alerted if any motion is detected.When the client presses a button we've installed at their reception it sends a coffee order to the cafe next door. When the button is double-pressed it signals all office staff that the receptionist is in trouble and needs assistance.One we're implementing now - at predefined times the client's underfloor heating, lights and even coffee machine are activated, curtains open and alarm (wakey wakey!) comes on.</div><div>We'll devote a future column to this excellent service and how to use it to do just about anything.</div></div>]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>