Sleep is something we all need and often are not very good at doing, especially with such hectic lives and such busy bedrooms that are not optimised for sleep.

Homni from Terraillon is a new product that is going to try and fix this! It’s currently for £199.99 on Amazon UK.

Unlike a lot of sleep tech Terraillon have gone one step further and worked with a medical institute, the European Sleep Centre, to understand the problem and how to fix it.

Terraillon Smart Lamp, Sleep Analysis Capability With Dot Sensor Included, Sleep and Wake up Aid, for Smartphone/Tablet, Built-In Speakers, Bluetooth Smart, Homni

Homni comes in three parts:

Homni
This is the main unit and contains an impressive number of sensors (temperature, humidity, noise level,,brightness) to analyse your room.

Dot Sleep Sensor (included)
This is the little sensor that analyses your sleep, looking at duration, cycles and movement.

Wellness Coach Sleep App
This collects all the data from Dot Sleep and Homni into a dashboard and analyses it to improve your sleep.

On top of analysing your sleep it goes a few steps further!

It claims to be able to help you get to sleep using ‘Cardiac Coherence’, this is a light that helps you slow down your breathing. Slower breathing has been proved to help in falling asleep.

It also helps you wake up, using a sunrise function that gives out different coloured lights depending on your sleep phase, for example blue to help you wake up.

That’s not all… it even has 2 USB ports to charge your phone. Not forgetting an integrated Bluetooth Speaker so you can listen to your own music before you fall asleep.

Wow this is a feature packed bit of tech.

Here is their promo video:

Terraillon already have quite a few successful smart gadgets so we are excited to have a play with Homni to see if it lives up to the pedigree.

Homni will go on sale with an RRP of £199 via their website. It’s currently for £199.99 on Amazon UK.

The post Improve your sleep with Homni appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.

This is a We Own it review!

In this review we are looking at the new Philips Hue Hub 2.0 and a selection of the bulbs and strips.

What does it do?

Philips hue was one of the first wifi lights to come into the market. Since then they have endlessly improved, releasing more bulbs and added functionality.

We know what you’re thinking, added functionality to light bulbs?! These are not just lights they can do so much more for example Sun Rise, Sun Set or different moods for different activities. One of our favourites is focus for when working late.

How does it work & what is the tech?

For the Philips Hue to work you need a Philips hub. This was recently relaunched to be Apple Home compatible. Easiest way to see which Hub is which is:

Square Hub with rounded corners = 2
Round Hub = 1

(Note If buying your kit from eBay or it’s on sale check it’s not the old Hub as lots of these are still being sold).

The lights then communicate to the Hub and you can control them via the App or via other accessories.
The list of accessories is also huge, everything from motion sensors to special switches.

The lights integrate into Apple Home allowing easy control via Apple Home and Siri, commands like ‘Good night’ can turn every light off.

The lights communicate with each other and the bridge via the ZigBee protocol.

How easy is it to setup?

Very easy, the bulbs screw into existing lights and installation is done. All you need to do is plug in the hub to your router and setup is done.

The hue light strips are the same, you just stick them to the item you want to light – for example TV, connect to the hub via the app and done.

One of the great things about this is you can install it anywhere yourself without having to get in a pro.

What’s the connectivity?

Extensive! They call their integrations ‘Friends of Hue’, the list includes all the big names:

Google Home
Apple Homekit
Amazon Alexa
Nest
IFTTT

Logitech Harmony

How much does it cost?

Prices vary as it depends on what lights you want, to give you an idea:

Philips Hue White starter kit (as in the bulbs don’t change colour) with 2 bulbs and hub – £59

Philips Hue Colour and white starter kit with 3 bulbs and hub – £149

Philips Hue White Ambiance Single Bulb – £29.95
Philips Hue Colour and white Single Bulb – £49.95

Philips Hue Lightstrip – £69.99

What’s it like living with it?

Great fun as well as very useful! It never gets boring when family comes over and kids want to dance to the flashing lights, or when your working late and you need bright ‘day light’. We’ve never had any issues with any and we own a lot of Hue

What are our final thoughts?

These are epic – one of our favourite smart home gadgets. Very few downsides, apart from the price but that said the bulbs have a much longer life than standard bulbs and use a lot less energy.

The post Philips Hue Review appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.