Ring’s Ring of Protection
Ring has released three new outdoor security accessories to create a…ring…of protection around the home. The $30 Ring Outdoor Smart Plug is a dual outlet plug for controlling outdoor lighting or appliances, but requires the Ring Bridge to enable customized smart controls and syncing with other Ring and Alexa devices. The $60 Ring Wall Light Solar provides 800 lumens of motion detection white light to illuminate outdoor areas like garages or fence lines, and also requires the bridge for smart control. Pre-orders for both ship on 4/7. Finally, the $90 Ring Outdoor Siren (which looks like a big blue Ring sign), amplifies existing Ring Alarm sirens to the outdoors. If the Ring Alarm system is triggered, the Outdoor siren will sound outdoors and flash LED lighting. Pre-orders ship on 3/31.
The NPD Take:
- This ever growing product lineup makes Ring’s portfolio one of the most, if not the most, broad of any smart home security brand out there – touching aspects of home security inside and outside the home and ensuring that consumers who want to stay within one brand ecosystem can easily do so.
Google’s New Nest Hub is Finally Here
It is no longer a rumor…Google has a new Nest Hub and it has a Soli radar sensor that detects motion, using that data to track your sleep (or lack thereof) habits. Soli has been used in the Pixel 4 to wake the phone when you waved your hand over it, and in the latest Nest thermostat to recognize when a room is occupied and adjust the temperature. Now the Nest Hub uses it for Sleep Sensing, detecting things like the movement of your chest when breathing and lying in bed (Google’s smarts are supposed to ignore any movements that are not, ahem, sleep-related). Sleep Sensing also uses mics – only turned on when it senses you’ve fallen asleep – to detect coughing and snoring, while temperature and ambient light sensors identify environmental changes. All of this data is processed and wrapped up into a daily report on your slumber patterns and recommendations to optimize sleep. When Sleep Sensing is enabled, the display will show a visual indicator to remind you that it is monitoring. In addition to sleep tracking, the new Nest Hub has an upgraded audio system, faster processing for Assistant requests, and Thread…to support Project Connected Home over IP. Selling for $100, it is available for pre-order now and will arrive in stores at the end of March.
The NPD Take:
- For those who are interested in tracking their sleep patterns and don’t want to wear a wearable to do so, this is certainly an interesting gimmick – but it does have some shortcomings. For example, it can only monitor one person at one time, and sporadic visitors (say from a human or a dog) would require recalibrating the system or discounting that night from the overall results. And then there is the privacy issue, although there is no camera on-board and the “images” look more like an ECG, and the feature is opt-in.
Deako’s Light Switches Coming to 12% of Homes Near You?
Seattle startup Deako Lighting raised $12.5 million as part of a Series B round to help grow its smart light switch technology. These “plug and play” switches, says the company, allow homebuilders and homeowners to easily swap in remotely controlled lighting, working with a home’s existing wiring. Deako says it has commitments to install the light switch in 1 out of every 8 new single-family homes built in the U.S., in part through a recent deal made with D.R. Horton, the largest U.S. homebuilder by volume. The company said it is adding two new markets every week.
The NPD Take:
- Today it is most common for consumers to move into homes with smart thermostats and smoke/CO detectors installed…but other smart home conveniences are clearly growing in popularity among home builders looking to raise the value of their properties.