Two Dutch entrepreneurs started a project on KickStarter to raise money for a device called Homey which allows to control any device in your living room using speech or a mobile application. To achieve this, the Homey has several radio and infrared modules onboard. The Homey should be able to control TVs, lights, music players and preferably any remotely controlled device possible for which the device supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, ZigBee, Z-Wave, 433.92 MHz nrf24l01+, Infrared. It’s also possible to send commands to multiple devices at once.
There are already a lot of “smart” products available in the market that let you control lights, temperature and many other things with your smartphone or tablet. However most of the time the user experience might not feel as seamless as it should. After all, nothing is as easy as simply saying out loud what you need done. Homey is a product that wants to enable you to do that for just about anything in your home. With eight radio modules including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, ZigBee and Z-Wave as well as powerful Infrared the Homey orb will be compatible with most devices. All radios are connected to a Raspberry Pi Compute Module which runs custom software developed by the startup behind this project. The orb itself is 4.3″ in diameter and comes with a multi-colored LED ring in the middle that gives feedback. A companion app for iPhone and Android is available allowing users to configure their Homey on the go.
