Today at SXSW in Austin, Texas, Ube announced a new innovation for our Smart
Dimmers. Engadget interviewed us and covered us
here. This feature will be available as a firmware release
free to all Kickstarter backers - expect it in early Q4 this year.
Ube Announces A Smart Light Dimmer that Can Control Your Other Smart
Gadgets
Demo 2012 Award Winner, Ube offers Wi-Fi Dimmer with Unique Gesturing
Control
Austin, Texas - SXSW – March 11, 2013 — Demo 2012 People’s Choice winner Ube
(pronounced “yoo-bee”) announced that their WiFi Smart Dimmer will have the
ability to control other smart devices in the home by simply gesturing on the
dimmer’s capacitive multi-touch interface.
The Ube dimmer replaces standard wall switches to control incandescent, LED
and CFL lights. It’s based on an ARM 32-bit processor running embedded Android
and contains a Wi-Fi interface. The dimmer has a unique multi-touch capacitive
interface that allows the light to be turned on or off by sliding a finger up or
down on the glass switch front. Using two fingers can control multiple lights
and using the familiar pinch-close gesture turns off all the lights in your home
using machine-to-machine communication between multiple dimmers.
The innovation announced today takes advantage of the machine-to-machine
capability and expands it to other devices on the network that can receive IP
based commands. As an example, if a user draws a “W” on the dimmer, a signal
could be sent to an IP connected water sprinkling system to turn on or off the
sprinkler. This specific example is backed up by Ube’s partnership with
Greenbox, a water sprinkler controller with Wi-Fi connectivity (also funding on
Kickstarter here:
http://kck.st/XbEE0w).
Ube’s dimmer can be programmed to work with a variety of other IP based home
devices as well. For instance, the letter “A” followed by an upward swipe can
arm the alarm. Similarly an “A” then a downward swipe could disarm the system.
The gestures are user programmable and therefor are secure. Ube has filed for a
patent for this unique design.
The opportunities to utilize this gesturing ability are expanding rapidly.
Earlier Ube announced cooperation with the Almond+ router. Ube is a founding
member of the Internet of Things Consortium (
http://www.iofthings.org) and
is committed along with many other companies to open APIs and open standards for
the hundreds of home devices that sit on the IP network including thermostats,
Smart TVs, Set Top Boxes and media streamers.
