What does the Lightwave rf Lighting Starter Kit do?!

This starter kit contains everything you need to start automating your homes lights. The great thing about this solution is it retrofits your existing light switch and works with most existing lights and fittings.

Due to the way Lightwave works it has an impressive range, meaning the hub can be 15m away from the switch. Unlike ZWave, Zigbee or WiFi with shorter ranges.

How easy is it to setup?

Setup requires basic DIY, as you need to replace your existing switch – if you are unsure please seek professional help. The switch is installed like any ‘normal’ light switch – we did it easily.

You also need to setup the hub and app. Setting up the hub was easy and the app guides you through the setup in a few steps.

What’s the connectivity?

Lightwave rf works with an impressive list of integrations, including:

• Amazon Alexa
• Apple HomeKit
• Google Assistant

These then connect into the scenes and features allowing you to control via voice or the control app, for example Apple Home.

We tested it with Alexa and the command was instantly completed with zero lag.

Lightwave Lighting & Power Starter Kit (Smart Series)

How much does this the Lightwave starter kit cost?

£185 – the good thing is once you have the hub in the starter kit you can buy additional switches from only £59.99. This is reasonable when compared to other smart light solutions, for example Philips Hue.

The switch comes in stainless steel or white, it also includes a handy spacer for switches with a shallow back box.

What’s it like living with it?

Great – the app is full of features including:

• Automation – If you have additional lightwave products like sensors they can be used to automate. As well as a rules and timers.
• Scenes – Allowing you to easily set your favourite scene for TV or reading.
• Schedules – Great for security if you are away on holiday and want to simulate occupancy and make people think you are home.
• Wake Up – Creating gentle wake up routines

One slight frustration was checking if the switch is compatible with existing light fittings, they do have a feature on their website however its not very extensive.

The range is as impressive as advertised, with no issues having the hub quite a distance from the switch.

What are our final thoughts?

This is a different approach to smart lighting and prevents the problem most smart lights have, that when the switch is off the bulb becomes dumb.

Where this solution really comes into its own is it connects to the rest of the Lightwave range, allowing heating, power and presence automation.

The HomePod was announced in June 2017 with release stated as December 2017. However it was not until January the following year that Homepod was released and 26^th of January available for pre-order. With it hitting retail stores in February, priced at £319.

HomePod comes in two colour options; Space grey or White. Apple claims not only there is high quality audio but that they have ‘revolutionized the way music sounds in a home’.

Powered by the A8 chip, the same one as used in the iPhone, the gadget incorporates Apples assistant Siri, in a very similar way to Amazon Echo range.

Spec wise the HomePod boasts six microphones along with seven tweeters, the sound quality is designed to be ‘environment adaptive’, ensuring it sounds perfect wherever it is placed. This is achieved by the tweeters adjusting the sound by monitoring its surrounding and keeping the microphone clear for voice commands even with loud music.

Support for multi-room audio and stereo pairing was also claimed in the start however these features were not available at the release time and will be added on later through a software update. Something Sonos and Amazon will be pleased about!

Streaming music to the HomePod has various options from Apple music to Beats1 live Radio or podcasts or Airplay – one big omission is Bluetooth.

Android users also take note, an iPhone or ipad is required to set up the HomePod.

The post Apple HomePod Released appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.

QI is an open interface standard for wireless charging developed by the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) in 2008. Yep it is not new, however has only recently become mainstream. “Qi” is the Chinese word for “energy flow“, pronounced like the “chee“in “cheese“.

It is wireless power transfer using inductive charging.

You just just places your device on a base station where only the base is connected by a wire to the power supply. Currently a number mobile companies are working with this standard. These include market leaders like Apple, Samsung, LG, HTC, Sony and many more.

The principle behind this is very simple.

The system consists of two devices, the charging base station (Qi sender) and the mobile phone (Qi receiver) where both should be Qi standard compatible.

The base station activates only when the device is placed on it. To check this the base station sends an intermittent signal to which the mobile responds by communicating the received signal strength. Once a device replies the required energy is calculated and the wireless charging process begins.

In this process the energy transferred wirelessly through electromagnetic waves. For this we require two coils; one transmitter coil for the base station and one receiver coil for the device.

The transmitter coil generates an oscillating magnetic field which in turn based on the fardays law of induction induces an alternating current in the receiver’s coil.

Efficiency of the inductive power transfer relies on close spacing of the two coils, as well as shielding on their surfaces.

In 2009, WPC published the Qi low-power specification which delivers up to 5W which is usually used for charging mobile phones.

In 2009 the Qi specification was extended to medium power which will deliver up to 120 W, to power displays and laptops.

By 2015, a high-power specification was developed to deliver up to 1 kW to power high power utilities.

The advantage to the Qi standard is that once a device is Qi compatible it can be charged on any Qi charging transmitter, regardless of the manufacturer, make of the device. For example an Apple user can use IKEA’s Qi Wireless Charging table to charge their compatible iPhone.

Recently even McDonalds in the UK have introduced wireless charging points in their restaurants.

The post What is Qi wireless charging? appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.

The HomePod, announced in June 2017, was Apple’s first entry into voice controlled speakers and allows users to interact with Siri and control their smart home. In a similar way to Amazon Echo, Google Home and the recently released Sonos One. Apple’s speaker will connect to Apple Music as well as Apple HomeKit. It is not clear if ti will support third party services like Spotify or Tune In.

Apple commented to press:

We need a little more time before it’s ready for our customers. We’ll start shipping in the U.S. UK and Australia in early 2018

We suspect this has been done to allow for product upgrades and to release a product that will dominate rather than compete it the fast-moving smart home speaker space.

One thing is for sure Sonos and Amazon will be grateful there is one less product competing at Christmas in an already busy space.

The post Apple HomePod delayed till 2018 appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.

You can find Qi Wireless Charging devices on Amazon, starting usually from £16.

Wireless charging in itself is not new technology and a few other manufacturers have been trying to get it into the mainstream for years.

In an unlikely move for Apple their new phones support an open interface standard called Qi charging.

Before you ask it’s pronounced ‘CHEE’ and comes from the Chinese word for Energy Flow.

Qi charging is a standard set by the WPC, the wireless power consortium.

They have been established since 2008 and is now on version 1.2.2 of the standard.

It works in a similar principle to ZigBee – meaning all tech that uses it will in theory work with each other. This means you will be able to use any Qi device or pad to charge your new iPhone 8 or iPhone X. However Apple do plan to also have their own version of Qi with ‘expanded specification’ they they call ‘AirPower’.

One company that must have seen this coming is IKEA.

In 2015 they released a range of Qi Wireless charging furniture and lamps. Allowing you to buy cheap, integrated wireless charging solutions.

This is the second time they have been spot on with their tech integrations, they also released a range of Smart Bulbs that work on ZigBee. The same standard as Philips Hue.

Other mainstream adopters of Qi are McDonalds, they also started rolling out Qi charging points in their restaurants in 2015.

Apple fans everywhere will rejoice that no longer are they forced to buy expensive certified cables, that often break.

We are pretty excited by this move by Apple as it’s yet another move by a big player into a shared smart ecosystem. Moving away from walled gardens and closed tech!

What do you think of Qi Wireless Charging? Let us know in the comments.

The post Apple announced Qi Wireless charging – IKEA right again! appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.

This is happening wordwide, In the U.S., people can check out the experience at Apple’s Union Square store in San Francisco, we’ve no data yet on which UK store offers this new display – if you know this, please get in touch!

Credit: Techcrunch
Photo credit: Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images

The post Apple sets up smart home in-store experiences appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.

Tech companies are starting to realise users don’t always want to open an app on their phone to activate their favourite light setting or play music.

Following on this path hardware pro Logitech has relaunched their programmable button Pop.

The big difference to the first version of the product they released last year is this time it’s fully compatible with Apple Home, allowing a press of Pop to activate an Apple Home theme or trigger something set in the app.

The Logitech Pop, as before, works with Logitech’s Pop App – uses a hub to connect to the internet and connection between Pop and the hub is done via Bluetooth. Many Pop’s can connect one one hub.

Prices start from £119.99, thanks to David our reader for updating us on the full price point. Additional buttons can be purchased for £30. Pop comes in four colours; white, alloy, coral, and teal.

They are due to ship later this year!

The post Logitech announces Pop v2 with Apple Home support! appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.