These days, many consumers feel like the Smart Home world has turned into a thick jungle in which they quickly lose track of what they’re looking for. We want to help you find suitable gadgets and provide inspiration for Christmas gifts your friends and family will love. That’s why we asked Wolfgang, Lead Android Developer at Nuki, for his personal highlights from his own Smart Home. These are his favourites:
Homematic offers a large number of different devices, all of which can easily be paired with one another. Whether heating control, a smart plug, shutter control, motion sensor, or even an external siren: With Homematic, the sky’s the limit when it comes to your Smart Home.
Tip: With the right Smart Home Hub (such as the Mediola hub), you can of course also connect your Nuki Smart Lock to all of your Homematic devices.
Sonoff offers Smart Home devices that you can easily integrate via Wi-Fi. The S20 smart plugs provide a good example: You can easily operate them via your smartphone and of course also connect them to other devices. You want your coffee machine to switch off when you leave your home? Not a problem thanks to Sonoff.
Even though a multitude of providers offer smart light bulbs today, Philips Hue is still the top dog. With its Hue platform, Philips wasn’t only one of the first manufacturers to launch smart light bulbs, but has also developed a very broad product portfolio that ranges from simple light bulbs and LED strip lights through to designer lamps and indirect illumination systems. The Philips Hue range also stands out thanks to its easy set-up and management. Philips Hue is compatible with all major Smart Home systems, including Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, and IFTTT, but thanks to the well-documented API, you can also integrate smaller and more individual Smart Home systems.
Google’s Chromecast lets you turn your speakers or older TVs into smart devices. This means that you can transform your TV that’s getting on in years, your old monitor, or your unused projector into a media centre. You’ll be able to mirror Netflix or YouTube films or your laptop’s screen content to the display device wirelessly via Chromecast. The highlight of the Chromecast range is the Chromecast Ultra, which not only displays content in 4K HDR, but will also be able to play all games from the recently introduced cloud gaming platform Google Stadia. As a result, you can enjoy a high-end gaming experience at a very affordable product price.
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