Apparently, the world needs another smart lightbulb, and Elgato’s going to sell it to you. Called Avea, the $50 bulb connects to your iDevice directly using Bluetooth, and lets you set the mood in any room with an appropriate shade of light. Just one iPhone, 5th gen iPod Touch or iPad can control a whole house full of lights and give users multiple lighting scenes to choose from. Plus, there’s an alarm feature that wakes you with the gentle gleam of a 7W LED bulb pumping out 430 lumens.
Everything has pretty much stopped in North America for Labor Day (except for perv hackers), butIFA 2014 is ramping up in Germany and Elgato is using this event to debut a new lineup of smart accessories. The announcement encompasses three major new products: Eve, Avea, and Smart Power. Elgato Eve is easily the most compelling new product in this lineup. Through the use of several sensors, Avea monitors your home’s “air quality, temperature, humidity, air pressure, energy and water consumption.” These Bluetooth connected sensors report back to your iPhone or iPad via the Elgato Eve app. And here’s the best part, it will be fully compatible with Apple HomeKit. Apple announced HomeKit for iOS 8 back in June during WWDC. The goal behind HomeKit is to centralize and simplify the management of home automation accessories. Once fully launched, HomeKit will allow iOS users to control a variety of devices (from different manufacturers) including locks, lights, cameras, doors, thermostats, plugs, switches, and more from one app. Siri will even learn a few new tricks so you can control your home with voice commands.
