The Apple HomePod goes on sale this week and Kevin is getting one for the show. We’re not sure if you should yet. We discuss that, and our respective Google Home experiments. We also cover Ring raising money at a big valuation, layoffs in consumer IoT, and trouble at SigFox and more. This week’s guest is Matt Turck, managing director at First Mark Capital. Every two years, Turck amazes us with his map of all the IoT startups. This year, he came on the show to talk about where the industry is, what he’s looking to invest in and the end of the first phase of the IoT hype. Listen to the overview and then go check out his in-depth blog post and market map.
Another solution to a “smarten” a pre-existing hardwired alarm is to use Eyez-On Envisalink 4 and hook it up to your alarm panel. It connects via Ethernet to allows a user to remotely arm/disarm, receive SMS text or e-mails of alarm status (i.e. Zone 3 Alarm tripped, WAN down) and other monitoring such as select cameras and HVAC controls. There is a limited set of alarms it can work with, specifically DSC PowerSeries and Honeywell Vista, but these are the majority of alarm panels used.
I personally have used the Envisalink 3 for almost 5 years and it has worked flawlessly. It’s not exactly plug and play, needing 4 wires hooked up to the panel and to the add-in Envisalink board. However, that is much easier than rewiring everything to an Arduino and it also allows for the current zoning structure to remain in place.