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GE rebrands smart home business as CYNC, HomeKit support coming soon

C by GE becomes CYNC

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GE Lighting is rebranding its C by GE smart home line as CYNC, ahead of a debut of several new products, and an imminent HomeKit support addition.

GE's smart home line now dubbed CYNC — a stylized spelling of "sync" — is getting a shot in the arm. Alongside the new branding the company is introducing several new products including bulbs, a motion sensor, a switch, and a camera.

SYNC app by Savant SYNC app by Savant

All products in the CYNC line aim to be easy to use and require no additional hub to operate.

To start, GE Lighting has an updated $20 color-changing Direct Connect Smart Bulb. It is joined by an indoor motion sensor and an adhesive wall switch that magnetically connects and can be moved around.

CYNC Outdoor Smart Plug CYNC Outdoor Smart Plug

CYNC's Outdoor Smart Plug features dual outlets in a weatherproof body. Each outlet has an independent cover and it connects over both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

The new CYNC Indoor Smart Camera has a compact design, articulating base, and can record locally onto a microSD card. For privacy, there is a cover that can slide into place that no only covers the lens, but physically disconnects the microphone from working until the cover is opened.

GE Lighting CYNC Smart Indoor Camera GE Lighting CYNC Smart Indoor Camera

For $3 per month or $30 per year, per camera, users can subscribe to Cam CYNC which allows access from anywhere. The camera itself retails for $69.99.

Coming soon is the CYNC Fan Speed Smart Switch which will allow control of ceiling fans from the GE CYNC app.

These devices were first shown off at CES 2021, but they're now available nationwide. At launch, all of the new GE Lighting CYNC line supports Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant but the company says HomeKit will launch by year's end.

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7 Comments

robertwalter 9 Years · 276 comments

Expensive camera.  Money sucking monthly subscription to get remote access.  Competition has cameras that don’t require the subscription. 

I don’t think this camera will be very successful. 

george kaplan 16 Years · 169 comments

It probably says something about me that I saw the new name and thought it was CYNIC. 

It’s a terrible name.

chadbag 13 Years · 2029 comments

In terms of colored bulbs, I think Nanoleaf is the one to beat.  With the latest firmware, mine have been excellent with Thread support with fast reaction.  I also have a bunch of Hue colored bulbs and they are ok but the Nanoleaf are what I am buying in the future. 

StrangeDays 8 Years · 12986 comments

Better late than never I suppose. 

I just got a Synology NAS going, which handles my wireless Time Machine and local backups, with redundanct drives. Next up is hooking up some PoE video cameras and see how localized CCTV works out. 

22july2013 11 Years · 3736 comments

Expensive camera.  Money sucking monthly subscription to get remote access.  Competition has cameras that don’t require the subscription. 
I don’t think this camera will be very successful. 

The camera's data is sent to the cloud, and possibly stored unencrypted on servers in China. Which the CCP government has access to. And GE thinks we don't care to know what is happening with our data.