For me, this is one of the most frustrating categories in the Smart home market within the UK. There are several incredible smart lock brands out there; Yale, August, Kwickset, Friday, ERA, Schlage to name several. All of them come with their own designs, technology, ease of integration, power and configuration issues. Some look awesome and others look like something from a 1980’s hotel room door....
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Why did I become an Electrician? This post is going to be a wee one. I passed 4 City and Guilds exams to become a fully qualified domestic electrician in February this year. While we don’t need an electrician to do all of our installs, a lot of the Nifty backbone works best when it is installed within the electrical network of the house. It becomes...
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This week it was my turn to jump on a plane and head up North to catch up with Curtis, check out our new Business cards and record some video and for the first time ever, stay in a caravan. First off our Business cards, check them out, shiny gold! Looking awesome, now we just need to head out to some meetings and visit a few clients to scatter...
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What are your 3 favourite things in IoT? Can I pick 3 things in a moment, because I think the the greatest thing about the IoT is that we can combine so many different sensors and kit into one seamless experience that allows anything and everything to be controlled in any way anyone sees fit. But that’s cheating, so the 3 things in IoT that I love...
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One of the biggest questions we faced when talking with people about what we wanted to do and why we wanted to look at assisted and supported living solutions, was how do we balance enabling people to provide support with the supported person’s desire for privacy. As we live longer lives and modern medicine can enable us to live independently, we have the chance to live...
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Like the human body, the backbone of your house network is one of the most critical parts of your house. It enables everything to talk with each other, lights to come on at the correct time, locks to unlock and to be there when you want to add something new. A badly installed or one that is too small for the house and your requirements,...
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Owning a holiday home is both a blessing and a pain from when you arrive to when you have left, there are checklists of things to do, meters to read and locks to shut. All of which can be summed up in: Security The Environment The Welcome Back The Departure Security How can you simply and effectively protect your holiday home when you are not there? Nifty...
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Sure if you want a Crestron, Control4 or Savant system, then you had better be prepared to pay for it, perhaps not a footballer but certainly not for most us. And that’s good, these guys have led the way for years, creating bespoke, high priced, closed systems for those who can afford it. But like all technology, along came companies who saw high priced, bespoke...
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Be smart and sell homes With the economy and a need for rapid house building, new homes are increasingly built to a cookie cutter template, with standardised fittings, exterior looks and aggressive pricing. One way to stand out is to enable the new home owner with the 3 C’s. Control Customise Cost save By building in smart home components at the start, the developer can quickly, efficiently...
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Problems: 1) I want to make sure my parents are safe 2) I don't want to put them in care My parents want to live at home until the very end, I want to make sure that they are safe and enjoying their life with minimal intrusion and maximum dignity and fun. I worry though: Are they safe? Are they breathing? Have they fallen? Are they warm? Have they...
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