Fibaro announced at CES that its ecosystem of smart home products, including controllers, sensors, remotes, and gateways, will all now integrate with three of the smart home market’s leading control platforms: Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Assistant.
The diversity and flexibility of Fibaro’s offerings enable do-it-yourself smart home enthusiasts to create both simple and straightforward voice command setups, or expand into more complicated schemes involving multiple devices. Simple commands to which most smart home users are accustomed could include turning on lights, adjusting a room’s temperature, or checking which doors and windows are currently open. However, users can also command the Fibaro ecosystem to simultaneously perform several tasks with a single predefined verbal command.
Fibaro’s compatibility with other smart home products is increasing as well. The Fibaro devices are compatible with leading audio/visual brands including Bose, Sonos, and Bang Olufsen, among many others. The company’s research and development department continues to explore additional integrations, particularly those emerging in the automotive and smart home appliance sectors. Fibaro has also opened up its platform further to allow community members to create and test integrations that can be used with Fibaro products.
On the security front, Fibaro works with Yale, August, Danlock, and DSC to ensure that smart locks and security systems are all integrated and engaged. In another innovation announced this week, Fibaro says that customers using an iPhone X to control their smart home platform can disarm their alarm system using Face ID, Apple’s face-recognition feature. Fibaro intends to expand the number and complexity of voice commands for each smart home platform throughout 2018.
New products for 2018
Fibaro also brought some of its nifty new gadgets to CES this year. The simplest yet most interesting one is simply called “The Button,” a wireless, battery-powered control device with two configurations that works with either Z-Wave-based and Apple HomeKit-based systems. The HomeKit-configured Button can sync with Apple’s Siri while the Z-Wave-based Button works with Alexa and Google Assistant.
The Button is one of the first products in the HomeKit network that does not require a gateway, hub, or bridge to connect. At less than two inches in size, The Button can be mounted almost anywhere to easily activate a device or sequence of commands.
The Button recognizes up to three different actions at a time. Users can program it to kill the lights with a single tap, activate the thermostat with two clicks, or trigger a customized scene by holding it down. In Fibaro’s system, “scenes” are synchronized actions involving several smart home devices.
The Button will be available in red, white and black when it begins shipping in the first quarter of 2018; five additional colors will follow later this year. It’s already on sale at a variety of retail outlets for $50.
Finally, Fibaro brought its new Wall Plug, a smart outlet powered by Z-Wave technology for monitoring and managing home devices, to CES. An LED ring around the plug displays different colors as energy consumption changes. If the amount of power drawn increases the device’s temperature, a warning light flashes.
The Wall Plug connects to the company’s Home Center hubs to identify which devices are using the most power, set power limits and shut down sequences, and receive email and SMS alerts. Fibaro’s Wall Plug with USB will be available early in 2018 for $60, followed by a non-USB version for $50.
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