From the connected oven in your kitchen to the talking dryer in your laundry room, just about every corner of your home has entered the 21st century. Your garage, on the other hand, may seem a few decades behind. Sure, it houses your decidedly modern cars (perhaps those are connected as well), but for the most part, it seems as though smart home technology hasn’t quite made it to that area of property. Skylink Group, however, is looking to change that. At CES 2018, the company debuted the Nova, a Wi-Fi enabled, universal garage door controller said to sync across all connected home accessories, and be compatible with Amazon Alexa.
Perhaps the most appealing thing about the Nova is that you ought to be able to retrofit it directly onto most garage door controllers in existence, which means you won’t need to rewire your entire home simply to add this one smart home accessory to the mix. Simply access the SkylinkNet iOS or Android app, and get to work pairing it with the controller you’re used to using.
From there, you’ll be able to remotely open or close your garage door using the Skylink app. Nova is also compatible with the If This Then That (IFTTT) platform and Alexa Voice Services, which means you can control your garage door and a host of other connected devices all at once, and using your voice.
The Nova itself doubles as an LED light fixture, and claims to detect alarms from smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in your home. Anytime one of these alarms sounds, Nova will automatically open your garage door to aid in ventilation in the case of an emergency.
Promising minimal wiring for an efficient and safe installation and setup process, the Nova seeks to fit quite seamlessly into any garage.
“With the Nova, we are providing homeowners with a smart hub that can control a majority of smart home accessories on the market, while offering an added safety solution to ensure the safety of families across the globe,” said Skylink Group president Gallen Tsui. “The built-in sound detector will revolutionize the way we view the smart home — what was once an extraneous function of the home will now be considered an essential.”
Nova will sell for $100 when it becomes available at the Skylink website in spring 2018.
