iDevices adds an outdoor plug and a thermostat to its HomeKit smart-home lineup
iDevices brings a trio of smart-home products to market, all compatible with Apple HomeKit centralized control on iOS and powered by Siri voice activation.
Apple HomeKit has arrived, and iDevices is one of Apple's first partner companies to announce three products compatible with the service.
The company showed an early demo of its smart wall outlet adapter called Switch at the Consumer Electronics Show back in January, but yesterday we got to see the retail model, plus two more iDevices arriving at Lowes soon: a rugged version of the Switch to automate electronics outside the home and a thermostat for customers to control household temperatures from anywhere using any iOS device.
The Switch is a networked smart plug that replaces any outlet in your home and connects your electronics to the Internet, so you can turn on lamps, TVs, appliances and other gadgets by using your smartphone running the iDevices app as a remote.
The demo environment at the press conference yesterday showed a bedroom set up with a string of lights and a bedside lamp connected to a Switch. Using the app, I was able to toggle them on and off individually and even group them both together on a timer, scheduling a "bedroom scene" at the time of my choosing.
Thanks to its HomeKit hardware certification, the Switch plug is responsive to Siri-based voice commands for the same functions, and telling her "Goodnight" shuts off all the lights for bedtime.
The Outdoor Switch is a ruggedized, weatherproof version of the standard plug and is designed for users to trigger behaviors in exterior parts of the home, including holiday lights, security cameras, spotlights, and more. You get two outlets on the Outdoor Switch too, and they're routed to the bottom for further protection from the elements.
The iDevices Thermostat rounds out the trio and requires a bit more home improvement acumen to install. Once it's set up, you can establish a weekly schedule to set your preferred temperature at any time and assign profiles for multiple users to control it.
Should you run into snags during installation, iDevices' in-house customer support is available for up to two years after the purchase date to help you out.
Power monitoring and usage reports for all three devices are accessible within the newly updated iDevices Connected app as well, showing the average daily usage in an aggregated format. The company also informed me that over-the-air updates are expected in the future, including the ability to use an Apple Watch to control the action with a simple flick of the wrist.
The Indoor Switch and the Thermostat will sell at Lowe's and the iDevices website on September 28 for $49 and $149, respectively, while the Outdoor Switch will sell for $79 in November.