Smart Home Blog

The Danish company QEES announced two new Z-Wave products – Keyring Pendant and Wall Switch. They allow to consumer to control Z-Wave devices in the home individually or grouped into four groups. The Keyring Pedant will be ideal for car owners to open or close a garage door. It has an operating range up to 120 meters (400ft) and it is enough compact to take it always with you.

The wall switch can be used as a fixed remote control for Z-Wave devices. It’s battery powered and can therefore be installed anywhere without additional wiring.

Both QEES Z-Wave Keyring Pendant and Wall Switch available from Homeestore and Zwave4u.

[via AutomatedHome]

That cool switch plate offers some kind of unique functionality. You may record a message (up to 20 seconds) that will automatically play each time someone flips the switch. It can easily replace an existing switch plate. Just not sure how to 4 AAA batteries will fit the switch box. Also the Parrot Digital Messaging Switch Plate is cheap (just $9.99). So, you can simple try it to see how it fits your life.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find the possibility to ship that messaging plate to Cyprus. So, I have no idea how it useful but personally I prefer notifications on my cell phone

If you care about environment and your electricity bill but always forget to switch off unnecessary light using SmartSwitch is an one way to solve that situation. It’d designed to give user feedback about a value of personal or communal electrical usage. If that value reached predefined maximum than the SmartSwitch is physically harder to use, thanks to a brake pad inside the mechanism and built-in microprocessor. As result the user will always remember to turn off unnecessary light and electronic devices.

The SmartSwitch fits into standard electrical boxes and data communication occurs through the electrical lines using X11 protocol.

Building distribution A/V system it’s easy to face with problem when one type of the video signal should be converted to another or it should be split, join or extend. Chines company Lenkeng offers a huge range devices which can do that work. The focus is done on the HDMI stuff – converters, splitters, extenders, switches and wallplate can bring to your home HDTV. On a par with it the Lenkeng has a bunch of AV, VGA and YPbPr converters as well as a number of different cable and adaptors.

Belkin recently announced its new HDMI 2-to-1 Video Switch. Just for $54.99 you can get a support 480i, 480p, 720i, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p resolutions, maintaining highest HDMI single-link video resolution, possibility to connect both HDMI and DVI devices, selecting inputs from the IR remote control. The switch is compact and powered by HDMI cable connection to HDTV. So, you don’t need additional power socket.

Now most of TVs supported HD signal include more than one HDMI input (I saw one model with three ones!). But if you’re not lucky HDMI 2-to-1 Video Switch definitely will help you.

[via Business Wire]