Smart home applications are becoming more and more popular and can automate many things in everyday life. In addition, it is often used to save electricity and energy or to make the home a little safer.
A smart home – this is a central topic today when it comes to improvements in your own four walls. Amazon, Google, and Co. have already picked up the trend and launched their own home automation services, but Microsoft is also in the process of providing hardware for smart home applications and is even outshining all previously successful providers.
THE IDEA BEHIND THE HOME HUB
The Microsoft Home Hub for Windows 10 is a software feature that not only allows smart control of all IoT devices but also acts as a kind of digital bulletin board for the whole family. This application can do much more than Amazon Echo or Google Home, which can only be used via voice control. However, Windows 10 goes a decisive step further and expands the concept of home automation with a display variant.
This can run on all Windows devices, so to speak, especially all-in-one PCs or 2-in-1 devices with touch displays. The background to this innovation is that, in addition to operating their devices by voice, users also have the option of calling up everything via the display. Voice assistant Cortana will of course play a central role and will also be permanently accessible from the lock screen. However, Alexa can also be integrated into Windows 10 and used with Home Hub.
INTEGRATION INTO THE HOME NETWORK
Unlike competing voice assistants, Windows has an advantage: no additional hardware or device is required to use the home network.
Windows 10 is perfectly adequate for this and after all, this is accessible to anyone who owns a Windows PC. However, Microsoft is not planning its own home hub devices, as is the case with Amazon Echo with Alexa, for example.
Lights, the heating and air conditioning, or the electronics should be operable with the Home Hub. This requires devices that support OCF and OpenT2T, i.e. all smart home devices, so to speak. “Air conditioners are known to be the most power guzzlers of all. With a smart controller, on the other hand, 40 percent of the energy costs can be saved. The only requirement for integration into the home network is that the device has a remote control with which you can make settings for the system.” Ralf Kastner, an editor at LUFTKING.de, knows this.
FAMILY-FRIENDLY USE
Another advantage emerges especially for families or shared PCs because with the home hub it should be possible to create a kind of control center for the whole family. Accordingly, notes or shopping lists for others can be stored on the start screen, or the family calendar can be filled and called up. Of course, this can also be operated by voice using Cortana.
Microsoft would like to move away from individual user accounts with password entry towards a kind of “Family Display” that is accessible to everyone. Although there will still be separate user accounts, the family account should make important things easier to access in order to make housekeeping easier. In addition, weather data or news can also be listened to and music played, but this is already known by other smart home providers.
