Andrew O'Hara
Intellithings has announced availability and HomeKit support for its RoomMe smart home presence device that helps improve the automation of connected devices.
Currently, with HomeKit, lights can be triggered by motion which could include pets or other inadvertent triggers. RoomMe can identify people and make adjustments based on who that person is.
The RoomMe system identifies the specific user by spotting the app on a carried smartphone. A mounted Personal Location Sensor — or PLS — does the identification and executes personalized room-level scenes incorporating lighting, temperature, entertainment, and more.
RoomMe integrates not only with HomeKit devices, but Wink and Sensibo bringing together hundreds of Z-Wave and Zigbee devices.
"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," said 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."
As an example, when a user enters the living at night, it could close the blinds, lower the lights, set the thermostat to their desired temperature, warm the light's color, turn on the TV to a user's preferred input, and adjust the volume. Each of those variables can be unique to each person.
Intellithings won a 2019 Innovation Design Honoree award earlier this year at CES for the RoomMe PLS.
The RoomMe PLS is available as a starter kit for $129 and includes two RoomMe sensors as well as access to the smartphone app. It is available for order now on Amazon.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Oliver Haslam
11 Comments
It's not exactly available to order..
Would be better if the app that identifies you ran on Apple Watch.
I don’t necessarily carry my phone around with me all the time, but my watch is always strapped to my wrist.
..."turn on the TV to a user's preferred input, and adjust the volume"...
What TV brand(s) currently provide this capability?
Doesn't Apple's Home app already offer this level of automation? *
So, why would I let a third party track me as I move about my home **
* Admittedly, I have not been able to get Home's automation to work: My garage door is supposed to close when I leave my home. It doesn't.
** Yeh, I'm probably overly paranoid about such things. But, I see no need to trust some third party if the one I do trust (Apple) already provides the service I need.