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Security platform Abode has produced a new smart home automation engine

Clayton Moore
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So, it looks like Abode (rhymes with home, roots in Middle English, not to be confused with big-A Adobe) has quietly launched a new smart home automation system that will interface with smart home products including Nest, Amazon Echo, Google Assistant, and more.

The company’s latest wingding is called “Adobe Cue,” a platform that users can use to create, edit and manage Abode automations. The company doesn’t directly call it out in their release, but it sounds very much like it’s running on an IFTTT (If This, Then That) model that analyzes current conditions and then automates a response, well, automatically.

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Through Cue, Abode users can create, edit, and manage their smart home devices through automations that dictate how the smart home platform responds to certain conditions. An Abode automation is much like skills for Amazon’s Echo devices or Google Assistant’s actions, meaning a user-defined rule that tells the system how to react when specific events occur.

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The Abode automation consists of two fundamental components: a trigger and an action. In other words, When an event happens (trigger), Then perform the thing (the action). If this, then that — ta da, you’ve built yourself an IFTTT platform.

The tricky part here is Abode’s definition of “conditions.” This is an additional layer of customization that the smart home automation platform hasn’t advertised previously. The company says that it has added a third component, meaning that its automation platform only responds when an event occurs (and then it performs the programmed action, but only if the trigger is actually true, meaning that smart home actions are conditioned upon what the smart home platform is detecting at the time.

“The introduction of the conditions layer makes the Abode Cue the new standard for how intelligent your home can be with an install-it-yourself smart home security system and it sets Abode apart from any other DIY solution currently available,” said Abode CEO and founder Christopher Carney in a release. “We took feedback from our dedicated customer base to heart and have created the Abode custom engine to be more powerful than any other program currently available that helps users customize their smart home experience.”

Beyond the introduction of a third layer of smart home automation commands, Cue enables Adobe users to create automations that feature multiple triggers (grouped together with the word “Or”) and multiple actions (grouped together with the word “And”). Users can also create automations in groups that include “Status Triggers,” changing modes from Home to Away; “Location Triggers,” (triggering actions based on the geolocation of a linked mobile device); and “Schedule Triggers,” which automate actions based on a user-defined schedule or time-slash-day-based triggers.

Abode is a somewhat rogue operation in the smart home market, founded in 2014 by former ADT executive Carney to offer a no-contract home security platform with comprehensive smart home security functionality.

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Clayton Moore
Clayton Moore
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Clayton Moore’s interest in technology is deeply rooted in the work of writers like Warren Ellis, Cory Doctorow and Neal…
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