Dancing Elvis

Technology Meets Comfort

[dancingelvis-blog]

Where’s the “Smart” Convenience?

I had my furnace serviced today. It stopped running. Suddenly. My wife mentioned that the house was a bit cooler than normal and of course I didn't really pay attention to the first few warnings from her. I finally went to check my "smart" thermostat and it said all indicators green, except the house temperature was one degree below the set temperature. So I ran one more errand before I went to check again and sure enough it was now 3 degrees below the set temperature. It also indicated that the heating system was supposed to be on but when I went to check the actual furnace, it was silent and cold (like the death stare my wife gave me when I told her she was right from the first warning she gave me). So after losing a few hours to my bad judgement, I called my service technician. Upon arrival, the technician asked me what code(s) the furnace was displaying. Being that my "smart" thermostat has no hope to show those codes nor do I make it a habit to disassemble my furnace, I couldn’t answer him. He looked at a LED deep inside the circuitry of the furnace and stated that it was “yellow”. He asked: ·       how long had it been that the furnace had stopped working? ·       how much had it been running in the last few days? I couldn’t answer either question. Why does my "smart" thermostat all of a sudden seem a bit dumb? It barely tells me the bare minimum. Also, did I mention that this "smart" thermostat was not cheap? Since my thermostat is in constant communication with my furnace, how about: ·       reporting the Natural Gas and Carbon Monoxide levels around the furnace ·       if the thermostat’s heat status is set to on and the furnace’s fan is not spinning or its flame is not flaming send me an alert (and show it on the thermostat screen) ·       look at past trends of furnace usage, outside and inside temperatures and determine that my current heating pattern does not match (and proactively tells me that) ·       based on the outcomes above, contact my service provider with a report of all readings for the last month. This will make the technician's visit more efficient and get my home back in order faster.  It just seems that with the amount of technology inside these "smart" thermostats and the valuable information inside my furnace, I should be getting a more seamless ‘warm home’ experience. This story can be extended to a lot of devices/appliances in and around the house (as these items get continually "smarter" and "smarter") and we as consumers should expect more complete and better stories from our technology. IoT, after all, is an intersection between convenience and technology.

[dancingelvis-blog]

What is “Internet of Things”

What is this "Internet of Things, or "IoT" and what does it mean to everyday people?  The phrase, attributed to Kevin Ashton, is most easily understood by starting with what we know as the "Internet," or the "Internet of People."  The Internet we all know is a place where we can enter and retrieve data.  We upload pictures and download weather information.  We write comments about a restaurant, and we check to see if a store is still open.  We email a friend or colleague, and we get directions to a new location and so on.  The common theme here is "we" or people.  Up until now every piece of information uploaded to the internet was done so by people.

Now consider the Internet of Things.  The oil in your car has always been a certain temperature, but now your car can send its oil temperature to your mechanic for real-time monitoring.  The window in your bedroom has always been open or closed.  Now, it can send you its position in real-time to anywhere in the world.  Your child's sports helmet was always protecting their head,  but now it can transmit its location, speed and direction in real-time documenting every play.  Things have always generated data. Now, with the advancement of microelectronics and unimaginably large data storage and retrieval capabilities, ‘things’ are being given a voice.

So what does the "Internet of Things" mean for all of us?  Depending on who you ask, there are currently between 1 to 2 billion people connected to the internet.  At the same time it is estimated there are 50 billion or more things that are currently connected to the same internet.  Also, those Things can generate far more data than people.  And the number of Things connected is increasing at a much higher rate than people.  What that means to us is, as useful as the current internet is, we can not even imagine what the Internet of Things will do for us in the future.

[dancingelvis-blog]

Wouldn't it be great if you had an alert in advance that your fridge motor was failing? If only there were away... New Blog Post Up

[dancingelvis-blog]

3 Things Every Homeowner needs to know

If you've been paying any attention to technology these days, you probably heard about something called IoT.  These are three things every homeowner needs to know about the Internet of Things.

1. What Is IoT?: This stands for the Internet of Things.  Simply put it refers to technology that allows any inanimate object, as opposed to people, to send and receive information from the internet.  Any 'thing' from your refrigerator to your thermostat to your pet's collar.  Anything.

2. What will that mean?: It means all those 'things' will now be able to share real-time information, receive instructions, and carry out tasks.  Instead of your refrigerator running until the motor fails and all your food spoils, now it can send a message to your smartphone and its manufacturer to warn when it's starting to wear out.  Instead of having to manually adjust your thermostat from inside your house, you can do that from anywhere. Your thermostat can make further energy-saving adjustments on its own as it learns your family's patterns. Imagine instead of having to wander through your neighborhood calling your pet's name when they squeeze through the fence, you can open an app on your phone and find them instantly.

3. Why should you care?: All that information that is being shared by your 'things' can be easily intercepted by the wrong people. That means a burglar can scan your neighborhood and identify which households are on ‘vacation’ or haven't been home in a while.  Basically everything about you and your 'things' can now be accessed by anyone, anywhere, anytime.

[dancingelvis-blog]

Why can't my pen instantly digitize my movement across the paper and send it where I tell it to? #IoT #IoTWorld #InternetOfThings #SmartConnectedProducts #Convenience #ImagineItDoIt