Smart Home Blog

If I ask you – “Can the ordinary thing like a toilet impress you?”. “No” – answer most of you. And only those people who saw the luxurious and high tech toilet by Kohler Numi will say – “Yes”. It sports built-in personalized bidet functionality and deodorizer innovative dual-flush technology with 0.6 and 1.28 gallons per flush, integrated air dryer, heated seat and foot warmer, automatic opened and closed lid, built-in music system, MP3 player connection and FM Radio, LED highlighting To control the high-tech toilet the controller with LCD touchscreen is used. So, as you may see this is a really cool device. And its price is cool as well – $6400. It’s good alternative to gold and platinum toilets 🙂

Watch the demo video of Kohler Numi’s high-tech toilet after break.
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Conspin recently introduced its new smart remote control called ANDI-ONE. It’s based on Android 2.1 (Eclair), supports IR, RF and WiFi and allows to control up to 50 devices! The ANDI-ONE sports a 3.5 inch (320*480) LCD display to display different remote control layouts as well as Android’s applications like a photo frame, the watch, weather information, headline news etc. Moreover, it can playback media content to a TV via HDMI and makes VoIP calls thanks built-in microphone and speakers. Additionally the remote control has three-axis accelerometer. So, it can be used as a spatial mouse.

The ANDI-ONE battery can be charged via PC/notebook USB port or using stylish dock. The full charge allows to use it for 20 hours.

Currently there is no any information about availability or price of Conspin ANDI-ONE. Hope it won’t take too much time for producer to bring that fantastic device on the market.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

GreenWave Reality launched its Z-Wave based home automation system with energy, water and gas consumption meter. It includes a GreenWave Reality Gateway, Energy Display and PowerNodes (intelligent power strips). Any other Z-Wave devices produced by different manufactures can be used as well (viva Z-Wave!). The Gateway communicates with Z-Wave devices, control them and collect energy/water/gas consumption data. The Energy Monitor grubs that information and shows it to consumer in clear way. It also can be used separately in any Z-Wave compatible system.

The Gateway can be connected to Internet. In that case the system can be managed remotely as well as update its firmware. There is no any info about price and availability yet. But GreenWave Reality system looks very promised.

[via AutomatedHome]

As you may know the modern TVs allow to watch media content not only from local sources but from network shares or online services as well. But producers limit functionality. For example, to get media content from the network share only DLNA can be used. UPnP or Samba are not supported at all. But thanks to open source enthusiasts there is a way to get more from your TV.

Project SamyGo offers alternative firmware for the Samsung TVs. Using this firmware you’ll able to mount NFS or CIFS/SAMBA network shares, receive media content from UPnP servers, use WiFi adapters 3rd-part companies, activate PVR functionality. Additionally you’ll have telnet access to your TV and ability to run custom scripts when TV switched ON.

Another project openlgtv offers alternative firmware for LG TVs. It also offers possibility to mount NFS or CIFS/SAMBA network shares supports UPnP and much more. Using USB Ethernet adapter you can add your TV in the local network even it doesn’t have built-in Ethernet port! There is another project for LG TVs – LGMOD v1.2, which additionally offers a web interface to configure your TV.

It’s good to see that consumers have a choice between limited official firmware and alternative one offered much more features. And number of those features is increased continuously.

Just found that picture on the Unplggd web site. Probably this is the best TV installation I seen ever! No any visible wires and stylish audio components. I’d like to know more about that installation. So, if you have some info, please, drop the comment.

UPDATE: The installation is used KEF KHT 3005 5.1 surround sound system (thanks to Paulo Hoppe for info!).