You probably don’t give much thought to the air that you breathe day in and day out. Unlike what you eat or drink, you probably think there’s not much you can do to control what you take in with each breath. But you can help your health by improving the air quality around you with the Alea Air, a smart air management platform for your home.
Alea Labs, a smart home startup based out of Redwood City, California, launched the Air last week to offer consumers and businesses more control over the air they breathe while inside their home or office. The system is a combination of physical vents and machine learning intelligence that work together to create a more comfortable and safer environment.
First things first; the vents. They come packed with 11 separate sensors that monitor the air, robotic louvers that help control air flow, and what the company describes as an “energy-harvesting unit” that helps extend the battery life of the device. Alea’s vents are designed to be easy to install on your own, so you can quickly replace your standard vents with these smarter alternatives.
Once installed, the vents communicate with one another via the cloud to process thousands of pieces of information about your home or office. That data is analyzed by a machine learning system that can make all sorts of automated decisions for you that will subtly create a more comfortable living or working space. The devices can create room-by-room preferences, take into account weather forecasts, and make changes based on how many people are in a room at a given time — all while taking into account the size and dimensions of the room and the time of day.
According to Alea, counting on its Air system to make the calls on heating and cooling for you will have your home running far more efficiently and will save you a considerable amount of money on your next energy bill. On top of that, it can track air quality and make sure that you’re never exposed to harmful materials or compounds that may make it uncomfortable to breathe in your own home.
Alea’s Air system isn’t available yet — it’s just now going up for pre-order, and shipments are expected to start in January 2019. The company is offering an introductory price of $379 for the starter kit, which includes three vents. Additional vents can be purchased for $119, though the company says that price will only be available for a limited time.
Outdoor security cameras are not always practical if you live in an apartment or rental. Drilling into an exterior wall may be off-limits, while pointing a regular indoor camera through a window can create another problem once reflections start showing up after dark.
Baseus is trying to solve both issues with the new PrimeSentinel W1, a $69.99 security camera designed specifically to monitor the outdoors through glass. It mounts directly to a window without drilling and uses a 4K Starlight sensor with an F1.0 aperture for full-color monitoring during the day and at night.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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With AI progressing so fast, it's only a matter of time before we start getting AI companions like the ones we used to see in movies like R2-D2, Wall-E, or Baymax. Now, Singapore-based OKA Technology has unveiled Mori, a cute little AI companion that looks less like a conventional home robot and more like someone turned the Pokémon Foongus into a table lamp.
Mori isn't meant to clean your house or control your smart home, but to serve as what OKA calls a "Nature Companion." It uses subtle movements, warm lighting, nature-inspired sounds, and small reactions to make its presence around the house feel calming rather than distracting. Mori can sit quietly while you read, sway along to music, welcome you when you enter a room, or encourage you to slow down for a moment without requiring a screen or a conversation.