NADELLA
SPEAK
A smart home via
your smartphone
The Microsoft CEO shares his definition of work-life
harmony -and explains why he feels for those who
can't go through dinner without obsessing over their
smartphones Sound, lights, appliances -a number
of your household gadgets can now be operated
using your smartphone
There's one thing that the at Apple founder Steve Jobs and
Microsoft's Satya Nadella have in common.
While understanding the immense benefits of technology,
both have made the simple acknowledgement that there
are implications to letting it take total control of one's life.
One the one hand, Nadella's Microsoft has introduced devices
and apps based on computer-aided intelligence:
a personal assistant (Cortana) to manage calendars,
interactive chat bots on the internet, HoloLens virtual
reality glasses to impose a 3Dvirtual world onto the real world.
Yet on the other, when it comes to balancing work with
family and personal life, Microsoft's CEO doesn't think
modern-day obsession with devices is helping.
Perhaps part of his perspective is influenced by the fact
that he doesn't believe in work-life “balance“ but in
work-life harmony.
Says Nadella, “There's no such thing as balance. It's how
do I harmonise my work and my life? “
Nadella's approach is
especially pertinent in these times
when professionals spend considerable amounts of time
at work, and then continue to think about it even when
away from it.
But even if work is all-consuming, indicates this global
corporate leader, when it comes to spending time with
the family, the world of devices needs to make way for
real connections in the real world.
That means not thinking about “the last email“, you got
from work, says Nadella. By extension, it also means
putting down that phone and paying full attention to family
and friends.
It's a thought that he's himself working on: “When I'm with
my family, doing something say even this weekend,
tomorrow when I'm there with my daughter, I 'm present.
What does that presence mean?
A lot of us have the residual effect of the last email,
the last thing. You've got to get very, very good, I think,
in modern life to not have that residual effect spoil your
presence. I see people over a dinner table all on their
cellphone, that's when I say, wow, that's tragic.“
Nadella calls this addiction to phones “information anxiety“
and he's hoping that Microsoft's new generation of smarter,
talking, software and devices will help address and solve that.
“So I'm running late to a meeting. The personal assistant
realises that, automatically on my behalf reschedules or
notifies the person because it knows my calendar.
I'm not doing some texting and driving. That's one trivial
example,“ he says . Since the jazzy heyday of 80s scifi movies,
we've been promised houses that respond to our every whim.
Well, the future has arrived and rather than a smart house
that controls everything centrally, the brain of your home
is actually your smartphone.
Here are some of the coolest ways you can control your
home in 2016:
Music
that follows you around
You can now transfer what you're listening to on your phone
to your home speakers. Sonos ($199), the markets leading
connected speaker systems, has high-quality sound with
seamless syncing.
If you have speakers at home, the Gramofon, a classy box,
connects them to your WiFi for $69. Google's Chromecast
Audio, at $35, is a smaller version of the same idea, but
uses a 3.5mm jack, and works just like video Chromecast.
The Vamp for $59, lets you turn any passive hifi speaker
into a Bluetooth one.
Appliances
that do the hard work for you
Cool stuff is happening in the world of the humble kitchen
gadget too. The Wi Fi enabled iKettle ($180) lets you
handle it from your phone. Everything from your oven
to your dishwasher can be controlled from your phone
with appliance rang es like Hoover's Wizard. LG's taken
the talking tech trope further with Homechat, through
which you can text your appliances.
Many products such as British Gas's the Hive, Belkin's
WeMo and D-Link's Home Smart work with smart plugs
and sensors, which control door and window sensors, detect
motion in the home, and control appli ances. You'll never worry you left the
iron on.
can go a step further with smart metres like the Loop
Energy Saver gas and electric ity tracker ($71) to monitor
your usage.
The Hydrao Smart Showerhead, from the French firm
Start & Blue, uses Bluetooth to connect and monitors
your water usage.
Lights
you can dim from your wrist
Systems like Philips Hue and LIF have smart lightbulbs,
which let you control your lights and change the colour.
The other latest round of light bulbs can boost your WiFi
signal (Sengled Boost Wifi Bulb), play music (Mipow
Playbulb, $79.99), and also work without a hub (Misfit Bolt).
An area where connected devices have evolved in a
major way is home security. Cameras like Piper, Canary
and Butterfleye can keep an eye on your home and let
you monitor the HD feed from anywhere. To improve
your humble fire alarm, install the cloud connected
Roost smart battery ($34.99). It sends your phone a
message when the alarm is activated.
The smart home of the future
While it seems like there a re more connected home
products than we could possibly keep up with, the market
is still pretty fragmented.
In the future, we're looking forward to products from
disparate manufacturers working together harmoniously.
In fact, it's looking a lot like the future of smart homes
isn't just appliances talking to you, but talking to each other.
|
in techradar com
|
ET 7APR16
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