Personal Location Sensor device announces HomeKit and Wink compatibility
Sometimes smart homes don’t feel that smart. One of those times is in multi-person households. For roommates and families, smart homes can feel like they’re tailored to the person with the control – you know the one with all the apps on their phone. Voice assistants have helped removed some of this friction, but it’s still an inelegant solution considering the power of the connected home. Now there could be a solution.
Shipping today, RoomMe is a small, smoke-alarm like device that you stick on your ceiling and it senses who you are (thanks to your smartphone). It then adapts the connected devices in that room to your personal preferences.
Developed by Israeli startup Intellithings, RoomMe uses a patented Presence Sensing Technology that looks to replace what motion sensors, occupancy sensors, and time-based triggers can do in a smart home – automatically adjusting lighting, comfort, entertainment, and more to whomever is in the room.
Of course, a device like this is only as good as its integrations, and today Intellithings announced RoomMe is now compatible with smart home systems HomeKit and Wink, and the Sensibo AC controller. That’s in addition to already announced integrations with Philips Hue, Lifx, Ecobee, Sonos, and Bose.
Read this: 8 clever ways to better use smart sensors in your home
“Sensors make the difference between a home that just has a few smart devices installed and a true smart home. Sensors, by name, sense what is happening,” says Oren Kotlicki, founder and CEO at Intellithings. “With RoomMe, we take that idea a step further: This is not a sensor that is triggered by a pet to turn on a light, but a personal location sensor that knows who is in the room and what that person wants the room to do, automatically.”
We have a few questions – such as will our lights, music, and climate be boomeranging as our family moves around the house? We’d also love to see SmartThings integration and some more thermostat compatibility, plus we’re interested to see how this will be different from location-based triggers you can currently use with some smart home systems (presumably more accurate?).
But this is a functionality we’ve been wanting for our smart homes for some time – and we’re cautiously optimistic (so much so we named Intellithings one of our Hot Smart Home Startups). We’ll be testing these shortly and will report back with a full review.
RoomMe starts shipping worldwide today, starting at $129 for a starter kit, which includes two RoomMe devices. Additional units are $69.99 each. RoomMe is available on Amazon .
