Smart Lock System Includes A Camera - Goji

We have seen a growing number of home automation products focusing around door locks this year. And they continue to get smarter in what the technology is able to do. They are able to performing much with leveraging your WiFi connections so they can communicate over the web with your smartphone. And that is the great beauty of all these products. The latest one we have discovered is the Goji Lock System, which is an automated front door lock and then some.

What sets the Goji Smart Lock from the others is that the system has a component that goes inside the front door and another component that goes on the outside of the front door. While the inside lock is similar to others that we have seen, the outside component has a built in camera on it to show who is at the front door along with a display which can show information to the person outside. This eliminates the need for something like the iDoorCam which is a door bell with a camera and motion sensor. The Goji combines that together with a home automation front door lock.

So, the Goji gives you visibility of who is at your front door and can send that information to your smart phone. It can display information on the external component so that someone knows that the front door is unlocked. The interior device is similar to others we have talked about and communicates with your WiFi and then to your iOS or Android smart phone. There is also support for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), but few Android devices have that and requires Jelly Bean 4.3.

You can unlock the deadbolt remotely via your smart phone when people need to get in and you are not there. You can grant temporary electronic keys so that people can gain access with their smart phone as well. And all the opening of the door is recorded and logged for you to review. And you can even integrate with small key fobs to open the Goji lock as well.


There are some drawbacks for the Goji locking system. The big one is that it must replace your existing deadbolt lock. So, if your deadbolt is a single unit that includes the door handle, you are not going to be able to use the Goji for your home. Another drawback is the round device you attach to the outside. It snaps on and looks to be fairly easy for someone to steal, so we would hope they would make it harder to open.

The Goji is to be released in December at a price of $278, which you can order now on the Goji site for delivery in December. While the price may seem a little high, you have to remember that it is more than just a home automation device to unlock and lock the front door. It includes an external camera which shows you who is at the front. When you factor in the cost of buying that separately, this looks like a pretty good deal.

Motion Sensor Tells You Someone Is At The Door - iDoorCam

Answering the front door may not necessarily be a problem, but if you work in your pajamas like I do somethings, you really do not want to open the door to someone when you are not dressed appropriately. Hearing the doorbell makes most of us jump up to answer it. But, what if you could sit and relax while answering the front door? Would you be interested in that idea? Or even have the front door tell you someone is there before someone rings the doorbell? That would be something of interest. Now that I have your attention on something that can make your life a little easier, read on. A product to do this looks to be possible in the near future as a new product called iDoorCam prepares to come to market.

The iDoorCam Doorbell is currently an Indiegogo campaign to raise money to fund the manufacturing of the product which will be made in the USA. With a goal of $100,000, they have blown past that as they are over $400,000 as I write this. That means they are going to come to market and deliver a product that I see as ground breaking for what I want. There are other products we have read about in the past, but this one seems to be smaller and blend in better than others.

The iDoorCam is only 2.75 tall and is a circle similar to what you are used to seeing. It is 0.75 inches thick to hold the technology in it at a weight of 1.9 ounces. And in the technology area, it comes with a standard door bell button. In that button is a motion sensor which will recognize that someone is at the door before they ring the bell. There is a camera and a night vision LED included along with the expected speaker and microphone. You will also have an app to use with this, but unfortunately, it is only for the iPhone. But there is going to be an Android version by the end of the year.

All of this is dependent on a WiFi connection from the iDoorCam to your WiFi Router. From there, it will send a signal over the Internet so that your mobile device can be contacted. From there, you can answer the door without leaving your seat. Or you can answer when you are not even home. Now that is the way to provide for security at your door when you are not there.

The installation is pretty simple, but there is one thing that we are disappointed with. You attach the baseplate into the wall, attach 2 wires for the doorbell and then snap the iDoorCam to the base plate. It is that last step that I do not like. If it just snaps on, what is to stop someone from just snapping it off and taking it? They need to correct this before release to make it more secure.

The expected price after the pre-orders is $165. So, if you want to pre-order one for $137, now is the time to do it. The pre-orders are expected to be shipped in October, just a month away. This one looks very promising.

WigWag Home Automation Device Monitors Your Home

KickStarter Friday - Bringing Home Automation Together.

We have all seen various home automation products showing up in the market and we have written about a number of them. The problem is that few of them really deliver on the ability to bring home automation to a single device which you can then use to manage and monitor things in your home. The idea of having to buy and manage individual devices just does not make sense in today's technology world. And the idea of paying for a security service when you can do it yourself does not make any sense either. That is where the WigWag comes in to provide you with a way to manage devices which provide a common interface from a central point, your smart phone.

This week's KickStarter project is the WigWag Home Automation project which has raised over $270,000 of the goal of $50,000. This looks to be a very popular project and one that you should take a look at. It comes with 8 sensors included with it, such as temperature and motion. You do not have to think very hard to see how you could use just those two. And it comes with the "if that then that" (IFTTT) programming interface for you to easily program in things that you want to see happen with this home automation unit. The WigWag seems to have a lot going for it.

The WigWag can interface with any open device communicating over WiFi, ZipBee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth and RS-232 devices. That gives you a pretty decent number of protocols and products that can work with the WigWag. And there are other devices that you can get on top of the WigWag. There is the WigWag Relay which will let you communicate to the cloud. The WigWag Relay lets you monitor things when you are not at home giving you the kind of home automation that we all want to see with our smart phone. Take some time and look at this one as it has some great features.

SmartThings Provides An Open Home Security System

KickStarter Friday - Opening Connections To Other Products

Home security systems have become very important today. And there are so many different ways that you can protect your home and belongings. The problem with so many of the various home security packages which are available is that they are not open. If you buy a package from a security company, you get their products along with the monthly fees. You cannot add some other product into the mix. Even the ones which leverage mobile technology today are not able to take advantage of other products or apps. And there are a number of different methods used for communication, like ZigBee, Z-Wave and WiFi. And vendors are not going to include multiple methods for communicating with devices.

So, for this weeks KickStarter Friday, we are talking about SmartThings which raised over $1.2 million for their base product. This was done last year and they have shipped product. At the moment, they are working to manufacture more to meet the continuing demand and you can "Reserve Your Spot" for one when they come in which is currently estimated to be in May. The SmartThings hardware unit and the associated software is being worked on to continue to include more and more devices.

If someone's product allows for it to be controlled by a 3rd party, then it can be controlled by SmartThings. There are developers working to add various products and controls to be able to join the SmartThings unit. While this does sound like a fantastic way of doing things, it is going to take a little while longer to create the software connections to other devices. The company is working to make connections to the things in your home and allow for automation of them from a single device. That is a big undertaking and if they are only 50% successful, they will have a great product.

While they sell "things" which are devices you would normally have with a security system, such as door and window monitors, it is the potential to use other devices which do not come from SmartThings. Their SmartApps are designed to let you monitor just about anything that you can reach which has an interface. And with that, they have a large development effort which appears to be operating much in the same way as open source projects. It is these apps which will allow the SmartThings unit to monitor and control so many more items than one would think. It is all dependent on whether those devices will allow for the SmartApps to access their information.

This may be the next be thing for home security and move beyond the limiting packages that you are forced to purchase.

Nest Thermostat - Bringing Intelligence To Home Heating & Cooling

Many of us have struggled with trying to keep our living environment at the right temperature so that we have the correct comfort level. Years ago, there was the manual thermostat which required you to changing it constantly to maintain the temperature you wanted. Changes when you go to bed, get up in the morning or leave for the day. Then came the programmable thermostats which greatly simplified what we needed to adjust, freeing us from paying attention to adjusts to a certain degree. But, we still made adjustments to the settings.

When the Nest Thermostat was released by Next Labs it brought in a thermostat which had the ability to learn and adjust to our living environment and our changing patterns. This was a form of home automation to control the temperature but so much more. Artificial Intelligence is probably a better description of the Nest Thermostat. They call this a "Learning" thermostat and that is probably the best description of what it actually does.

The Nest Learning Thermotat learns your behaviors as you make adjustments to it and it keeps track of that information. It also can detect that you are moving about in the home to know you are there. If it cannot detect you, it will set itself to Away Mode to conserve energy. During the first few weeks after you install the Nest Thermostat, it keeps track of the various setting changes you make and starts to do them for you. It is that learning which lays the foundation for it taking over the process.

With WiFi connectivity to your Nest Thermostat, you can make changes remotely to temperature settings. And while the only app available when this was released was for iOS, they now have an Android app as well which covers the majority of smart phones in the market today. The WiFi connection communicates with your Nest.com account which is where you would make changes to the temperature remotely. This WiFi connectivity also gathers information about the weather where you live so that minor adjustments can be made to compensate for it.

They claim that 75% of people can install it themselves which is probably the same number who can install a programmable thermostat. There is an installation video and it makes the whole process look pretty simple. Nest Labs currently have the 1st and 2nd generations available for purchase and one of the big differences is the 2nd gen is thinner. If you have a narrow hallway, the reduction in how far it sticks out is a big deal.

The Nest Thermostat is not cheap, but if having technology in your home and being able to control it remotely while away is desirable, this is the one you want to look at.

Almond+ - Your Touchscreen Router And Smart Home Hub

KickSarter Friday - An innovation in the home router.

If you have been desiring a wireless router which does not cost you an arm and a leg to purchase, you need to read on. If you are looking for a wireless router that does not make you jump through connections to a PC to configure, you need to read further. As there are many products out in the market, but few which can provide you an easy to use interface and a very reasonable price. On top of that, how would you like to have a centralized place to control items in your home.

Enter the Almond+ from Securifi and is this weeks KickStarter project. With a goal of $250,00, this project has already passed $216,000 with over a month to go and shows just how successful this one is going to be. And you only have to look at some of the specifics about this to get an understanding why most people are going to want to get their hands on one of these. And you are going to be paying $99 for this when it is available.

To start with, the Almond+ is a 2.8 inch touch screen router. No more having to connect a PC to set it up, making it a delight to work with. If that is not enough, they are supporting 802.11ac along with 802.11n and is backward compatible. You will get access to both the 2.4 Ghz and the 5 Ghz bandwidth from this small unit. There are 4 + 1 Gigabit ports on the Almond+ which at this price is not something you see. And a range of 5000 ft from the Almond+ is going to make this a great home wireless router.

But that is only the router part of the product. This can provide you with home automation as well, supporting Zigbee and Z-Wave. You can use the Almond+ to control your heating and lighting if it is so enabled and deal with security alerts from the interface. Even better, you can control these from an iOS or Android app on your smart phone. And not just within range of the router, but over the Internet. That makes this a great item to control your home while you are away. If you have sensors on your front or back door, alerts for them being opened can be received by Almond+ and if you want, sent to your smart phone alerting you of that event. There are lots more items that can applied to this if they are enabled for home automation control and monitoring.

The Almond+ is planned to be released to those who pledge at least $99 or more toward the project. Those individuals should see their very own Almond+ in September this year. If this sounds like something that you are truly interested in, head on over to the KickStarter page for the Almond+.

WeMo Has You Moving To Home Automation

We have come a long ways in the last 10 years for being able to control devices in the home from a computer. Unfortunately, the ability to control heating, air conditioning and lights from a computer required lots of wiring in the home to accomplish. But recently, the ability to manage some electrical items in your home can now be done in combination with an iOS device. All you will need is a small device to plug into an electrical outlet and then plug what you want to manage into that. Pretty simple and you are then involved in home automation.

And the WeMo Switch from Belkin provides you with everything that you need in order to control a single item. You will need to download the iOS app from the Apple App Store and connect to the WeMo switch and you are then able to control that single item from your iOS device. You then can operate something like a lamp from your iOS device, turning it on and off. Turn on a coffee pot from your bedroom to have that morning cup ready when you go to the kitchen. All that you need is a WiFi connection from your iOS device to the WeMo device and you are ready to go.

The iOS version that you must be running is iOS version 5 or this will not work. Controlling multiple WeMo devices is a snap using the WeMo app. There are onscreen instructions for setting up each WeMo switch that you add to your WiFi network. And the app lets you schedule things to turn on or off for you.


There is one more part to this which is the use of ifttt. What is IFTTT you ask.

It is "IFTTT is a service that lets you create powerful connections with one simple statement: If this then that

Basically, you are setting up a rule that when something happens, then something else will be done. You can get more information at IFTTT.com. The WeMo app comes with a code you can use to connect to IFTTT to simplify the setup for you.

If you have wanted to get into home automation, but not spend the thousands of dollars to make that happen, this is absolutely the best alternative for you to consider. Belkin is working on new devices, such as the Belkin WeMo Light switch which should be out by this summer. And with that, they are working to include an Android app to control their WeMo devices and rapidly expand their market. For all you Android IOS owners, you can expect to be able to your your Android devices with the Belkin WeMo products this summer.