Automated Home

Logitech have just announced their new Harmony Keyboard. Aimed squarely at the living room, couch potatoes can rejoice as now there’s an easy way to search for shows, navigate menus and browse the Web on a PC or Mac connected to your TV or Internet-connected media devices, like an Apple TV, Roku, PS3 or Xbox. As with […]

Building on the success of their award winning Home Center 2, Polish smart home specialist Fibaro have today announced a brand new home automation controller, the Home Center Lite. The compact unit (90 x 90 x 33 mm) employs a 720MHz Cortex A8 processor and its on-board Z-Wave radio can manage up to 230 devices. The HC Lite ships with […]

The Honeywell evohome system is now officially on sale in the UK. The evohome controller, hot water and under floor heating kits are all available now (HR92 radiator zoning kits are available to pre-order today shipping in April).  The ’Connected Pack’, which includes the internet gateway, is priced from £249.  Honeywell tell us the iOS and Android apps are live […]

Myro Control have opened pre-orders for their new Myro:Air system after gaining Apple Certification for AirPlay and Made for iPod, iPhone and iPad. The Myro:Air is the first AirPlay receiver that employs a built-in Wolfson WM8741 Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC), allowing users to stream high-quality uncompressed audio from iTunes or an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch connected to your home’s Wi-Fi […]

On last nights episode of the BBC’s Dragon’s Den, business angel Piers Linney invested £50,000 in smart home company energyEGG. The energyEGG system relies on a battery powered sensor to determine when a room is unoccupied, turning off lights and appliances, which the company claims “typically saves 30% on the running costs”. Crucially the system […]

IOActive are reporting multiple vulnerabilities in Belkin’s WeMo range of Home Automation devices.  So far Belkin have been silent on the matter but CERT has now publishing its own advisory listing the security flaws. Is this an over-reaction to a one in a million chance of someone being able to hack your lights?  Or is it just the thin end […]

last weekend Automated Home reader Robin Edwards converted the boring old 20th century heating system in his holiday getaway to a shiny new smart home alternative, the Heatmiser Neo… We have holiday home and every time we go in winter we are confronted by a cold house which takes three to four hours to heat. The system […]

Danfoss have launched a new version of their Z-Wave Radiator Thermostat. The £60 LC13 TRV has upgraded firmware for improved network range and resolves an issue with Vera home automation controllers… Danfoss has released a new Z-Wave Radiator Thermostat (TRV) for 2014. The Danfoss LC-13 (014G0013) has all the features of the previous version but has updated firmware […]

Like most of you, our storage requirements have been growing over the years.  Our first Jukebox server was built in 2005, mainly to store music files.  Then in 2009 Jukebox MkII was born and with it a reduction in power consumption along with a major leap in performance and capacity to cope with high definition video […]

Polish smart home specialist Fibaro are now shipping their new Z-Wave Smoke Sensor. Described as ‘probably the smallest wireless smoke sensor in the World’ the £60 unit also integrates with most wired alarm systems available on the market. Advanced production technology allowed to significantly minimise the sensor components, making Fibaro sensor the most advanced device of […]