CONNECTED LIVING BLOG

North Brabant, The Netherlands, 7th April 2020: Essence Group, the leading provider of IoT based telecare solutions, have announced a series of new measures to support individuals suffering from COVID-19. Essence’s Care@Home platform has been rolled out in “corona-hotels” across ...
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The proportion of the planet's inhabitants over 65+ years old will nearly double over the next three decades growing from 12% to 22%. In absolute numbers, this age group will jump from 605 million to 2 billion over the course of half ...
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Artificial intelligence is becoming more ubiquitous, but most of us don’t see it in action as it’s very much behind the scenes. However, its presence is increasing to the point where we’re slowly but surely seeing its impact. Consider this: ...
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The “Smart” home is not new. It’s been in place in high end homes for more than two decades. What is new is that the advances in cloud computing, high speed Internet, and wireless connectivity including Wi-Fi have brought connected ...
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From exposure to advertising to watching movies, consumers have been told that the future will be more convenient for them. Over the years on the screen we have watched futuristic scenes people remotely controlling the washing machine while having a ...
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Everyone wants in on the smart home! Homeowners want to make their living spaces connected and automated. The tech sector is racing to provide the best systems, devices and technologies. Service providers in various sectors are monetizing this trend by ...
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The smart home market is becoming a reality and allowing its proponents to build a safer and more comfortable space to live in. The multitude of devices and technologies also bring many new business opportunities that smart organizations can leverage ...
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When an elderly or an ill person is home alone and they required emergency for any reason, effective communication with their monitoring center is crucial for their safety. For this reason Wilhelm Hormann invented the first Personal Emergency Response System ...
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According to Statista, the number of mobile phone users reached 4.77 billion in 2017 and is expected to pass the 5 billion mark by 2019, when 67% of the worldwide population will own one. Smartphones represented 38% of all mobile ...
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The Asian market is providing exciting new opportunities for players in the ever-growing smart home industry. According to HIS Markit “The global smart home market is expected to increase by nearly 250% in terms of unit shipments from 2017 to ...
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Connected living is no longer the domain of the future, it is the present reality. One which developers, companies and governments are all dealing with to provide solutions to the challenges our society is facing. According to AT Kearney Asia's ...
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The connectivity of a Personal Emergency Response System (PERS) is in continuous evolution. It has matured from all standard landline phone-based to cellular-based technology, which only became industry relevant about 10 years ago. Cellular connectivity in the PERS industry is ...
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The applications of artificial intelligence to enhance humans’ life open a vast array of opportunities available to those who have the foresight to begin to venture down that path. Looking at the aging population trends in European countries, North America, ...
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The full potential of artificial intelligence remains unknown for most of us and its numerous combinations with the Internet of Things only expand that potential to make it endless. In 2018, it is difficult to imagine our daily life without ...
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“For the first time ever, there are more people over 65 than under 5”.  It´s a resounding figure which categorically proves that demographic trends point squarely to an aging population.  In the US alone, 77 million Baby Boomers are already ...
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Consumers all over the world —but especially in Europe, according to reports—, are concerned with reducing their energy consumption and costs. But household energy management is no easy task. Daily life can get pretty hectic at times, and it is ...
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If there is one leading market that is has the most to gain from IoT and the Smart Home that would be the insurance sector. Alliances between insurance providers and smart home companies are mutually profitable. These companies are always ...
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We have already discussed in this blog the paradigm shift that took place in the IoT industry when developers and service providers finally realized that they may have missed the point: the road to mass market adoption did not run ...
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Last week, and for the third year in a row, we exhibited our connected living solutions at CES, in Las Vegas. The International Consumer Electronic Show (CES) is the biggest technology tradeshow of this kind in the world, and we ...
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Over the past year, voice recognition has shifted from being a rising trend to an industry standard in the connected living space. In words of Lisa Chesters, from Sigma Designs, it’s been “a serious game-changer” which is helping the market ...
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The end of the year is always a good time to look back and reflect upon our goals and achievements. 2017 has been good to us: new releases, new customers and many new readers. The end of the year marks the ...
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In 2016 consumer adoption of connected home devices experienced a huge leap forward. IHS Markit estimated that 80 million smart home devices were purchased by consumers, a 64% increase over 2015. Device adoption is on the rise, and consumer expectations ...
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We talk a lot about smart homes. However, most of the discussion centers around what benefits the consumers are deriving through intelligent and connected home devices. Automatic scenes, self-learning thermostats intelligent this, smart that… it’s all about the consumer. But ...
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We have talked before on this blog about the many players in the nascent connected home industry, a tempting but tricky market yet to reach its full potential, where those among the first to conquer will be the ones to ...
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Last Sunday, at The Media Innovation Lab (miLAB), a leading research & prototyping academic lab at IDC Herzliya, Essence, Aging2.0 and Mediterranean Towers Ventures hosted a Meetup to discuss how innovative Artificial Intelligence and robotics technologies that are available in the market today can help improve ...
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Last week we were once again a proud sponsor of CONNECTIONS Europe, the annual conference hosted by Parks Associates for leading executives from the connected home industry. This year, the event’s main theme has been IoT and the Connected Consumer, ...
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The cloud has had a profound effect on the way we do business. As we have discussed in past blogs moving to cloud based server platforms as opposed to localized infrastructure has allowed great flexibility, allows for data analysis that ...
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The world of IoT, although still young, is forever changing the rules of the game for all its players. Its wide scope and endless possibilities are revolutionizing business models, creating unexpected partnerships, and favoring unique market opportunities for service providers ...
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The internet of things revolution is in full swing; IoT devices are everywhere and becoming more significant in our lives. These devices can report back how they are being used and what issues they encounter. A real flood of data is ...
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The combination of technological advancement and rising cybercrime has resulted in contradictory implications affecting the smart home market. We will discuss the actions that need to be done by both consumers and vendors to improve cyber security in order to ...
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This past week we were in Palm Springs, California for the 10-year anniversary of the Medical Alert Monitoring Association's (MAMA) annual meeting of executive minds. MAMA is the only professional trade association representing the needs of the medical alert monitoring ...
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With the advent of possibilities enabled by IoT technologies, service providers are facing increasing pressure to offer their customers new services which in most cases fall outside their core competency. This post is a part of an upcoming series in ...
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We’ve talked before about the ‘sandwich generation’—adults who have to simultaneously take care of their aging parents and deal with other responsibilities like work and raising their own children. This is a consequence of increasing life expectancy in developed countries, ...
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Summer is made of everything we love, from long sunny days to peaceful beach strolls or pool-side barbecues. The warm weather invites us to relax, enjoy and take things easy. But sometimes the heat may be too much, and while ...
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Last week we inaugurated a short series of posts in which we will be offering some useful tips and advice to make the most of your connected home. Our second post is all about the most precious things in the world ...
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With this post we inaugurate a short series in which we will be offering some useful tips and advice to make the most of your connected home. With smart technologies, you are never too far from home, even if you ...
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The connected home industry is still very young, and like any teenager, it has made some mistakes on its way to finding its own identity. One of these was to get a little carried away with all the innovation that new ...
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This year was our 4th time exhibiting at IFSEC International, the biggest security exhibition in Europe, which brings together industry professionals from all over the world. The event caters to the entire security value chain, from manufacturers, distributors, installers, integrators, ...
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A while back we talked on this blog about the many advantages of voice recognition technologies applied to home care solutions for aging seniors, and also about how voice control as a form of home management was becoming a major ...
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The professional security market is a mature and stable industry with a proven business model that has successfully worked for decades. In recent years, however, there has been an unprecedented technological revolution that included several factors, such as the appearance ...
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The global demand for PERS systems is growing rapidly. According to the latest industry reports, the market will be worth $8.61 billion by 2020. The reasons for this rapid expansion are many: the combination of an aging world population with ...
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The Internet of Things is based on the principle that different objects connected to the internet should able to communicate and interact with each other. This would not be possible, of course, without appropriate communication channels. These channels or communication ...
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This past week we were in Naples, Florida, discussing telecare, remote monitoring and PERS technologies at Catalyst 2017, of which we were proud Platinum sponsors. Catalyst is the largest PERS conference in the United States and the first event of ...
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Falls are the leading cause of hospitalizations, injury, and death among older people. In fact, 25% of all hospital admissions among people over 65 occur due to falls, and 60% of those seniors are not able to return to independent ...
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Recent reports show that in 2016 consumer adoption of connected home devices experienced a huge leap forward. IHS Markit estimates that 80 million smart home devices were purchased by consumers last year, a 64% increase over 2015. According to ‘2016: ...
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Vital sign monitors have become the cornerstone of a wide variety of commercial and personal safety applications, ranging from baby monitoring to elderly care.  Many such monitors exist in the today market. In each case, the patient – or caregiver ...
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Last week we were in Las Vegas, attending the International Security Conference & Exposition –ISC West, the largest event in the U.S. for the physical security industry. As always, ISC West –which this year has broken a record of attendance ...
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The home security industry is a well-stablished, mature market in some countries like the US, where it has had a long, stable trajectory for over 30 years. During this time, the market has kept growing steadily, at a single figure ...
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Once again, Mobile World Congress —the world’s largest annual industry trade event, has taken place in Barcelona, bringing together one hundred thousand professionals from all over the world into a single venue to showcase and discuss the latest innovations and ...
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Recent analyst reports continue to be bullish about the bright future of the smart home industry, expecting it to rise to a $121.73 billion value by 2022. That is a huge market potential, and a significant business opportunity for those ...
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We live in a hyper connected society. No matter where we are, we are always just a few taps away from establishing contact with other human beings. With the variety of Social Media channels in common use today, our contact ...
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Telecom operators have ability to change and adapt quickly to the fast-paced times in which we live. This market speed is essential for survival, since competition is fierce. Telcos began their journey as highly specialized companies that offered either telephone, ...
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Frost & Sullivan has been so kind as to contribute with a guest post for our Connected Living blog. Shalani Andria, Transformational Health Industry Analyst, shares with us her expert views on the Digital Health market in the APAC region ...
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Good news is coming for all products related to the Connected Living market; or so we can conclude in light of some recently published data. A report by Parks Associates states that European homeowners demonstrate a high level of trust ...
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On Sunday we said goodbye to Las Vegas. ‪CES 2017 is over now, but we took back with us a lot of productive meetings, industry insights and, of course, a lot of good memories. This has been a very special ...
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Today we are in Las Vegas, attending The Consumer Electronics Show for the second year in a row. CES is the world's biggest consumer electronics and technology tradeshow, where the industry’s latest innovations are introduced to the marketplace, so we ...
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The end of the year is always a good time to look back and reflect upon our goals and achievements. For us, 2016 has marked the first anniversary of our Connected Living Blog, and we would like to celebrate this ...
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The Internet of Things is a fragmented market. There are hundreds, if not thousands of different companies creating and selling connected devices, products and services. The nascent industry is huge. New solutions are launched every day, either as standalone devices ...
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The connected home has not arrived to our lives as an explosive breakthrough as many analysts from the industry thought it would. Nonetheless, it is already here, among us. According to Parks Associates, in 2015, ownership of smart home products ...
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When speaking about PERS tech, the first idea that comes to mind for many people is the traditional panic button, a device that entails a long lasting stigma. It is not unusual for many seniors to refuse to wear them ...
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The Medical Alert Systems market, also known as PERS (Personal Emergency Response Systems) has been rapidly changing for the past few years. The revolution in the industry has been so fast that many companies have not been able to keep ...
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Last week we were once again in Amsterdam, attending CONNECTIONS Europe 2016, an event hosted by Parks Associates that brings together connected home industry experts from all over the world and of which we are proud sponsors. This year’s conference ...
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For the past two days we have been at the MAMA —Medical Alert Monitoring Association— annual meeting, an event that we never miss. It brings together professionals in the alert monitoring and PERS industry from all over the United States ...
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At present, North America leads the world connected home market. Favourable conditions for development —such as the recovery of the residential market— higher adoption rate of security systems and better consumer awareness regarding smart home technology than anywhere else in ...
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It has been said many times: the connected home market is a very large one, and still mostly unexplored. With its huge potential and business opportunities, it comes as no surprise that many players want their share of the pie ...
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Our latest researches show that not all smart tech consumers are created equal. Each household has its own specific needs and individual homeowners also have different tastes and preferences. The connected home market is not a homogeneous one, so it ...
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The promise of a connected home where all the smart devices work together to make life easier and more comfortable for homeowners seems like a very desirable scenario. But sometimes, getting devices from different manufacturers to work together and ‘talk’ ...
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As we have discussed in the past, people wish to stay in their own home for as long as possible, while remaining autonomous and independent. This is true not only for for people as they progress through the aging process, ...
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One of the best things in the connected living industry is that the market scope is huge. There is room for many players, and for myriad potential services and offerings to suit each customer’s needs. With a market so big ...
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Arguably, mainstream consumers are yet to fully grasp the value of certain aspects of the connected home, thus possibly keeping its proliferation to lower than expected growth. However, there is a clear indication that some service providers are beginning to ...
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At present, the biggest adopters of smart technologies are consumers aged 30-44 (GenX) and Millennials. They are the early adopters: almost half of them already have some type of smart product at home, although the first group almost doubles adoption rate ...
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The ability to reduce energy consumption and save on the monthly bill is one of the best rated benefits that owning a connected home offers. For European consumers, in fact, energy saving is the second most important feature in a ...
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According to a Gartner report, by 2022 a typical family could own more than 500 connected devices in their home. Regardless of how precise or optimistic these predictions may be, it cannot be denied that connected home technologies are gradually ...
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Like any young industry that is just beginning to take off, the Connected Living market is constantly evolving and changing at a very fast pace. We can see a clear example of its continuous adjustments and improvements at the events ...
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Much has been written about how new connected home technologies have blurred the barriers between home automation and home security. The Connected Home is a powerful combination of both. The benefits of intertwining security and automation result in its numerous ...
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For the past two days, and just one week after IFSEC was over, we have been busy attending Health Plus Care in London, one of the largest and most important integrated care conferences in Europe. Health Plus Care aims to ...
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This week we are in London, attending IFSEC International 2016, where we are showcasing our connected home solution with additional security features, WeR@Home, with which we aim to help service providers unleash the potential of the Internet of Things and ...
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Data security is one of the main concerns among smart tech consumers and one of the major barriers currently preventing mass market adoption of connected home technologies. This is not surprising: not only because initial wariness is the natural reaction ...
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These days (June 8-10) we are at Fort Worth Convention Center (Texas) attending ESX, The Electronic Security Expo, a conference and trade show for security providers, integrators, and monitoring companies who aim to grow their business and remain relevant and ...
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The Internet of Things (IoT) is completely changing the way we interact with our homes. Its influence is huge in many aspects of our lives, but if we were to highlight a specific industry where the IoT and the connected ...
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Josh Locke is Director of Sales at Essence USA. He is a Certified Senior Advisor with over 12 years’ experience in the PERS industry.  He has been in the “start-up” side of PERS for nearly all of those years.  In ...
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The U.S. market has set the example to follow. The main European telecommunication companies are closely examining the strong results of the American connected home market and have set themselves to refine their offerings and launches, seeking to stimulate a ...
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While only about 25% of U.S. households have a professionally monitored security system installed, over 85% of homeowners have expressed a desire to be able to remotely monitor their home while away. It is clear that there is a huge ...
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It’s a fact that world’s population is aging, especially in developed countries. There has never been so many seniors in the world as there are now, and their number keeps growing. In their golden years, older people want to age ...
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In the last post, we spoke about the best ways to help consumers understand the benefits of owning a connected living system, to raise technology awareness and to increase adoption rates. To go a step further and achieve mass market ...
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We are closer than ever to making the connected home a reality for millions of households around the world. We have the means and the technology to make that possible, there is just one thing missing, and that is mass ...
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The connected home offers a unique opportunity for telecom companies seeking to expand their business lines and look for ways to stay competitive in the market. As we discussed in last week’s post, telcos have good reasons to offer smart ...
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All the statistics, predictions, and customer trends point in the same direction: the connected home market is a big piece of cake that offers almost endless business opportunities for those who are quick to take hold of it. Why? Because ...
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Today we’ve said goodbye to another great edition of Mobile World Congress —the largest ever, since the 100,000 visitors mark has been surpassed for the first time in the event’s history. The GSMA reported nearly 101,000 attendees, an increase of ...
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Third day at Mobile World Congress and so far, so good! We are keeping up the hard work at stand E571 (Hall 5!). While our team continues with meetings, appointments and live demos at the booth, we have also been paying ...
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Our second day at Mobile World Congress has been a blast! We’ve been even busier than yesterday, welcoming lots of visitors to our stand. We also had several more meetings with potential partners and companies interested in finding out more ...
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As you may already know if you follow us on social media (if you don’t, you totally should. We post great content every day), this week we are in Barcelona, attending —for the third year in a row, we are ...
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Partnerships can generally be divided into two categories: those that enrich the functionality and services of the smart home consumer experience and those that deal with go-to-market channels. Alliances between whole home platforms and point devices enhance the eco-system and ...
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Living in a smart home is a great thing. It’s fun and it’s convenient. It allows you to save on your energy bills by automatically adjusting the thermostat to the weather conditions, or disconnecting electronic devices that are not in ...
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Falls are the leading cause of hospitalizations, injury and death among older people. One out of three adults over 65 falls each year, resulting in millions of hospitalizations, costly treatments and painful injuries that may increase the risk of early ...
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Back in 2007, when the first iPhone came out, the word ‘smartphone’ was barely known or used by general public. Now, eight years later, they have taken over the world. It is expected that by 2016 the number of smartphone ...
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The alarm clock goes off, you wake up the kids, make breakfast, take them to school, you’re in such a rush you forget your laptop. When you finally arrive to the office, you make a quick call to your elder ...
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Our second day at CES 2016 has been a very busy one. With lots of people coming to our stand to experience live demos of our Connected Living solutions and wanting to know more about business partnership opportunities. This tradeshow ...
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Yesterday was CES 2016 first day! The International Consumer Electronic Show, which takes place in Nevada, Las Vegas, is the biggest consumer electronics and technology tradeshow around the globe, and this year we are proudly taking part in the show, ...
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The concept of a Smart Home began its journey with the idea of the personal computer for every household introduced by Apple in the late 70s, along with the advent of the X-10 home automation standard. The invention of the ...
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