Internet of Things news of the week, May 10 2019

Here’s a roundup of this week in the Internet of Things. Get this summary in your inbox every Friday morning when you subscribe to our newsletter.

On-device voice processing and Actions coming to Google Home: This week at Google I/O, the company showed off a preview of local voice processing that’s coming to Android devices later this year. But what it didn’t show off is even more exciting: a local home SDK for Actions. Developers and device makers will be able to use it to enable local smart home actions, with the cloud being a fallback option. This means more of your data will be localized and a Google Home-enabled house will work without internet connectivity. (Google)

Google Assistant landing on Sonos next week: Speaking of Google, the “promised in 2018” Google Assistant integration with Sonos is finally arriving. Yes, it’s a little late, but it’s welcome nonetheless. Of course, only the speaker products that already support Amazon Alexa — the Sonos One and Sonos Beam — are getting Google’s digital helper. Watch for a software update next week for yet another Google service to come to the home. (Variety)

This hack makes smart security systems dumb: We often focus on security issues that let nefarious people take over your smart home devices, but this may be even worse. Researchers at North Carolina State University have found design flaws in smart security devices that can suppress notifications or prevent webcam video from being uploaded for later review. The research team hasn’t yet shared details of the flaw, or what devices they found it on, but will be doing so next week, so you may want to keep an eye out for their presentation and paper. (Insurance Journal)

Samsung has a new, small IoT chip: Samsung already had IoT chips for medium- and long-range applications, and its new Exynos i T100 chip completes the trifecta. The T100 is specifically for short-range communications between devices within a roughly 100-meter range. It supports both Bluetooth 5.0 and Zigbee 3.0.1 and can be used for IoT devices from smart lighting and temperature control to home security and monitoring and fire and gas detectors. With the addition of this small chip, Samsung now has silicon for NB-IoT, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Zigbee devices. No new devices with the Exynos iT100 chip have been announced yet as it is just now sampling. (Samsung)

Google Duplex: Robotic reservations more polite than people? That’s the impression I got from this article about pubs and restaurants that have taken calls from Google’s human-sounding digital reservation maker, Duplex. It makes sense because Duplex has a solitary focus, which is getting you a table at your favorite eatery without you having to call. When people call for reservations, oftentimes they’re not focused on that goal or could have simply had a bad day. Politeness aside, Duplex still doesn’t seem to have heavy usage just yet, so hosts and hostess, beware of the rude humans! (The Verge)

Kid-friendly Echo Dots are under scrutiny: When it comes to data privacy, kids under the age of 13 have the best protections compared to everyone else in the U.S. That’s thanks to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). But four U.S. senators claim to have evidence that Amazon’s kid-friendly Echo Dot violates COPPA in three different ways, and have sent a request for the FTC to review it. If you have kids under the age of 13 and have an Echo Dot in your house that the kids have access to, you might want to follow along to see what, if anything, comes from this complaint. (U.S. Senate)

Ecobee4+ is coming, but do you need it? Based on FCC filings found by Dave Zatz, we know what Ecobee’s next thermostat will look like, as well as what it will do, which is pretty much the same as the current Ecobee4. Design-wise the new thermostat swaps out a plastic screen for glass and reportedly includes one remote sensor, but that sensor still won’t register room humidity. If you already have an Ecobee4, you’ll likely want to pass on this version since you can already add your own remote sensors, but folks without a smart thermostat may be interested. (9to5 Mac)

Add AI at the edge for cheap: This one’s for the Raspberry Pi crowd who want to add a little AI smarts to the low-cost computing board. Seeed Studio has debuted a Pi HAT attachment with dedicated AI chip for $24.50 if you pre-order. Once the board arrives for general sale, you’ll pay $28.90. Either way, this is a cheap way to add a RISC-V processor dedicated to machine learning for, according to the company, “predictive maintenance, anomaly detection, machine vision, robotics, voice recognition, and many more” edge solutions. (Electronics Weekly)

Cognitive Systems gets more funding for Wi-Fi motion detection: Instead of using personally invasive cameras for in-home motion detection, could Wi-Fi do the job while providing less personally identifiable information? Cognitive Systems thinks so, and apparently so do its backers. The company raised $7.3 million this week to continue developing its Wi-Fi Motion product. If it works as planned, the device would give smart homes more contextual information and enable them to take action based on that information. For example, it would ostensibly detect that there are no people in a particular room at night so would shut off the lights. (Cognitive Systems)

Inexpensive Wyze Sense sensors work well: How Wyze keeps making smart home products for around $20 continues to astound me. Even more impressive is the bang for that buck. Stacey took the new Wyze Sense product for a spin this week, and if you’re curious how well this package works, you’ll want to read her review. Spoiler alert: This is a great product and has no monthly fee. (StaceyOnIoT)