IoT news of the week for Oct. 8, 2021

NICE acquires the Nortek brand of home security gear: Italian home automation company NICE has acquired Nortek’s security systems for $285 million. The deal adds to NICE’s brands of smart home gear, which include 2GIG, Numera, IntelliVision, Linear, SpeakerCraft, and others. In 2018, Nice took a majority stake in Abode, a smart home security system with a significant base of DIYers. The Nortek deal just emphasizes how important security is for any home automation company. (Nice) — Stacey Higginbotham

IoT platform Kore goes public: Atlanta-based IoT platform Kore has gone public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and started trading on the NYSE last Friday at $7 a share. (It closed Thursday at $6.42.) Like many IoT companies, Kore has seen a boost in business thanks to the pandemic and analysts quoted in this article anticipate it could use some of its cash to make acquisitions. (Fierce Wireless) — Stacey Higginbotham

Honeywell has patched a vulnerability in its controllers: Claroty, an IoT security firm, has reported three vulnerabilities in the Honeywell Experion Process Knowledge System (PKS) distributed control system (DCS). These vulnerabilities could allow a hacker to load their own software to a controller and have it execute malicious code. The result of that code could affect a physical process, or be used to launch a denial of service attack. The researchers have informed Honeywell, which patched the affected controllers, and now any company using those controllers must make a call on whether to patch or wait. (Claroty) — Stacey Higginbotham

Hiber gives up on its own satellite dreams: Hiber, a European IoT business that had hoped to launch its own constellation of satellites to build an industrial IoT service, has filed with the FCC to withdraw its plans to launch the remainder of its planned satellites. The company launched only four of 24 satellites and plans to look to another provider to supply the satellite connectivity. Hiber provides sensors and an integrated software monitoring package as opposed to raw connectivity and recently completed a deal with Shell to monitor its decommissioned oil rigs in remote areas.  Curious how many other IoT satellite plays experience a failure to launch. (SpaceNews) — Stacey Higginbotham

Maritime industry testing wearable fatigue-monitoring devices: P&O Maritime Logistics will use a smart device used in the logistics and trucking industry to measure fatigue in its marine workforce. The device, from a company called SmartCap, measures EEG signals using a band worn inside a helmet or cap to track fatigue. The goal of the gear is to help prevent a worker from falling asleep or performing badly during a safety-critical job like driving a truck or piloting a ship.  I worry that the use of such technology without addressing the reasons workers might be fatigued in the first place will just provide companies with ways to ask the utmost of staff while delivering the bare minimum in terms of relief for stressed workers. (Maritime Executive) — Stacey Higginbotham

Hello smart blinds with Thread support! I’ve been contemplating the addition of smart shades or blinds in my home for some time but haven’t flipped the switch yet. The main reasons? The costs and hopes for Thread support. So I was thrilled to see an announcement this week introducing Eve MotionBlinds Motors. These won’t arrive in the U.S. until early 2022, but I’ve already scoped out details from a store in the Netherlands where you can purchase them now. Yes, there’s Thread support, like most other newer Eve products, and the price seems to be about half of what I’d pay if I chose currently available smart blinds from Lutron or another company. And those current alternatives don’t yet support the Thread protocol. Eve has partnered with Coulisse for the window coverings which will be available in curtains, Venetian blinds and cellular shades. (Eve Home) — Kevin Tofel

There’s an expensive new HomeKit security camera: I’ve never heard of Zorachka, but this company announced a new HomeKit webcam called the Homam, and it isn’t cheap. The now-available circular camera costs a whopping $399. Why the relatively high cost? It doesn’t use the cloud at all for image storage or AI detection features, instead providing 64 GB of on-device storage, for starters. And the Homam uses something called VIS, or Verona Index Storage, which is a proprietary technology. VIS is used to store videos and high-speed indexes for faster navigation through your footage, similar to commercial video on demand services. The company says its camera can find one video clip in a five-year archive in under one second, for example. I’m not sure consumers will pay for such a feature, but at least there’s no subscription fee! (HomeKit News)  — Kevin Tofel

Finally: A Helium router that you can actually get. This week, RAKWireless announced it was building a new Helium hotspot called MNTD. I’ve been waiting since March for the similar LoRaWAN hotspot I ordered from Nebra for around the same $400 price. Every month since then has been one of frustration because of shipping or production delays. RAKWireless is taking a different approach with MNTD: Instead of taking bulk orders only to have consumers wait impatiently for devices, the company will only sell the product when it actually has them. This means buyers will only have to wait two weeks or so before they can expand Helium’s IoT network with their own hardware. Managing expectations: what a novel concept! (StaceyOnIoT) — Kevin Tofel