With smart tech on the rise, creating a connected home is now possible. At the moment, consumers have two different routes they can take. One is to purchase many smart gadgets, but unless they are all one brand, they aren’t guaranteed to speak to one another. Another way is to retrofit old appliances with sensor tags. The first option is pricey, the second is tedious.
Thanks to a recent Carnegie Mellon University project, users may soon have a third choice. What they call Synthetic Sensors is a single device that plugs into any electrical outlet to connect everything in a room.
While only a prototype, this tiny device captures a wide variety of environmental data to transform practically any household object into a smart device. It uses ten different sensors to constantly track metrics such as sound, humidity, electromagnetic noise, motion, and light. For privacy reasons, researchers excluded the use of a camera. The Synthetic Sensors then use machine learning algorithms to output that data as context-specific information. It’s like a universal remote for the home.
When a fridge is opened, it produces a unique signature. The device senses movement, sees the light come on, and hears the door creak. To a group of sensors, this sounds very different from a garbage disposal, faucet, or toaster. By training the Synthetic Sensors, the research team has created a wide variety of senseable objects and actions.
Modern day sensors have become so small and sophisticated that gathering the data from a single point has become easy. The difficult part involves figuring out what to do with the information. Lead researcher Gierad Laput figured out that it could be used to answer questions about someone’s environment. In a conversation with Wired, Laput explained their need to translate the data into accessible information. “The average user doesn’t care about a spectrogram of EMI emissions from their coffee maker,” he said. “They want to know when their coffee is brewed.”
Synthetic Sensors aren’t just limited to detecting one activity or device at a time. The suite of sensors allows it to detect a variety of inputs at once, although currently, this does not always work perfectly. “Doing this type of machine learning across a bunch of different sensor feeds and making it truly reliable under a bunch of different circumstances is a pretty tough problem,” says Anthony Rowe, another researcher working in sensor technology. “The easy solution in the short term is coming up with an interface that makes it easier for users to point out problems and retrain the system.”
As a proof of concept, the Synthetic Sensors lack a user-friendly interface. The bigger idea here is to use the device as a way to capture fine-grained data without the need for a camera. By adding this technology to something like Google Home or Alexa, the assistants would become more knowledgeable without becoming more intrusive.
Few things ruin a quiet evening faster than a robot vacuum roaring through the living room. Most of us end up pausing the cleaning run, which defeats the whole purpose of owning one. Matic thinks it has the answer with its new Serene robot vacuum, and the big selling point is how little noise it makes.
The Matic Serene runs at 52 decibels even when cleaning at full power. To put that in perspective, Matic compares it to the hum of your refrigerator. It is available now for $1,695, which is $200 more than the original Matic’s current price.
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.
Technology evolves every day, transforming how we live and work. Our devices are becoming more than tools we use. They are increasingly capable companions that help streamline day-to-day routines and spark creative ideas. If you have been waiting for the right moment to upgrade your tech setup, the Discover Samsung Shopping Event offers an opportunity to explore what connected, AI-powered living can look like.