We're entering an important age, one in which we're totally fine with having sleek little cameras equipped with sensors, sitting in our homes, tracking us.
Withings, the French company behind a variety of consumer health devices, announced today an upcoming device, the Withings Home, that is basically just that.
The Home device is a short, white-and-wood cylinder with a camera that sits in your home. It can motion and pick up on temperature, humidity, and levels of volatile organic compounds (chemicals used in building and furniture materials and cleaning products that can cause headaches, asthma, etc.). It can also notify you that your child is crying -- yes, crying -- with notifications and video to your phone.
It's like a Dropcam, but with a nicer exterior and some additional fancy sensors.
“All our devices so far have primarily served the body. They provide valuable information around blood pressure, activity levels, weight – all data that can inspire healthy choices in diet, exercise, and sleep,” said Withings chief executive Cédric Hutchings in a statement.
“With Withings Home, we’re addressing a very critical part of the health and well-being puzzle that has not yet been served by a single device. Home helps ensure your family is both safe and living in a healthy environment,” he said.
The Home camera sports a 135-degree wide angle lens, infrared vision, microphones, a speaker, and a night light, among other features. And you can keep track of all of this from the nifty mobile app that goes with it.
Oh, and it will be HomeKit compatible, so you might someday get your Home notifications on your Apple-made iWatch/iBand/i-whatever that we'll likely meet next Tuesday.
Withings is not the first company to venture into the sophisticated home-tracking arena. Dropcam, which Google-owned Nest purchased for $555 million in June, lets people not only monitor their home and store the footage in the cloud, but also it uses motion detection to notify them if, say, the front door has been opened.
In a different take, Jibo, the recently announced "family robot," uses a combination of all of the above to act as an assistant that can take group photos, help you with phone calls and text messages, read stories to children, and more.
The Withings Home is now available for $219, and limited editions will be released at later times.