UK council partners for robot grocery delivery service

Robots Wakefield Co-op Starship Technologies

UK supermarket group the Co-op has announced it is extending its autonomous robot delivery service to Wakefield, offering deliveries to 13,000 residents in the west Yorkshire town. Wakefield Council has partnered with the Co-op and Starship Technologies to offer the service to Outwood’s residents. Food delivery app Residents in some 6,500 households can place orders through the Starship food delivery app, which will be picked fresh from the local Co-op store on Meadow Vale, Outwood, and delivered in minutes. The launch of the service in Wakefield continues the expansion of…

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Autonomous street sweeper launched in Shenzhen

Taoping autonomous street sweeper

A next generation autonomous street sweeper and modular smart rest station have been unveiled in Shenzhen’s highly popular Xiangmi Park. The southeastern China city’s “Citizen Park” or Xiangmi Park is one of China’s more famous and scenic spots and serves as a popular site ranging from online influencers and people taking a stroll to children and elderly exercising. Costly daily cleaning Shenzhen reports the high volume of daily visitors enjoying the 424,000 square metre park also creates a considerable amount of waste, which is time consuming and costly to clean.…

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Open internet protocol tech helps Korea advance smart home strategy

national smart home platform

The Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) has adopted the Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) secure cloud-connected technology as the foundation for its national smart home platform. The initiative aims to improve residents’ living experiences through access to smart healthcare, intelligent safety systems, greater convenience through automation and improved energy management and control. Open internet protocol LH reportstThe OCF technology has helped it overcome significant IoT security, privacy and interoperability challenges. The OCF aims to enable IoT devices and services to communicate through a trusted open internet protocol (IP) framework which…

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Nokia IMPACT software helps Telefónica’s Movistar Chile deploy advanced smartwatch services

Nokia IMPACT IoT platform

Nokia today announced that Movistar Chile, Telefónica’s affiliate in Chile, has deployed Nokia IMPACT CDP Entitlement Server software in order to offer more advanced services for selected smartwatch models and to more efficiently manage those services. The deployment makes Movistar Chile the first operator in the country to offer services for advanced smartwatches with cellular capabilities, without being connected to a smartphone companion device. Utilizing embedded-SIM (eSIM) technology, the solution allows Movistar to increase its capabilities to support new smartwatches and wearables with advanced features, including monitoring cardiac activity, as…

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Semtech releases new LoRa smart home device for IoT applications

Semtech LLCC68

Semtech Corporation, a provider of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor products and advanced algorithms, announces the launch of the new LoRa Smart Home Devices (LLCC68d) extends LoRa’s market applications from industry-class low-power wide area networks (LPWANs) to smart home, community and consumer applications. The transceiver provides low power and extensive coverage for Internet of Things (IoT) devices in indoor and adjacent areas to connect sensors and actuators for security, environmental monitoring and convenience applications. “With its simple and flexible network architecture, Semtech’s LoRa devices offer consumers a unique opportunity to accelerate…

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Voice assistants used to control smart homes to grow by 769%

Voice assistants

New data from Juniper Research found that the number of voice assistants used to access smart home devices will reach 555 million by 2024; up from 105 million in 2019. By 2024, Juniper Research expects more than 90% of voice assistants to be used to control smart home devices; driven by increased participation from Chinese manufacturers. The new research, Smart Homes: Strategic Opportunities, Business Models & Competitive Landscape 2019-2024, found that voice assistants are an increasingly crucial element in the smart home; providing interoperability platforms that enable seamless control of…

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China, India, Japan and South Korea set to surpass 1bn installed smart electricity meters in 2025

smart electricity meters

According to new a research report from the IoT analyst firm Berg Insight, the installed base of smart electricity meters in the Asian markets China, India, Japan and South Korea will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.9% from 613.4 million in 2018 to reach 965.9 million in 2024. Over the next six years, smart meter penetration among electricity customers in the region is projected to increase from around 67% in 2018 to 94% by the end of 2024. At this pace, Berg Insight anticipates the markets will…

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Berg Insight says 18mn North Americans used connected care solutions in 2018

Berg Insight connected care solutions

A new report from the IoT analyst firm Berg Insight has found that around 18.0 million people in North America were using connected care solutions at the end of 2018.The figure refers to users of medical alert systems, connected medication management solutions and remote patient monitoring (RPM) solutions in Canada and the US. RPM is the largest and most mature segment having a total of 16.1 million users at the end of 2018. The market for medical alert systems is considerably smaller with an estimated total of 3.1 million users,…

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Smart home automation revenues to exceed $57mn by 2024

Smart home automation

New data analysed by Juniper Research indicates that automation revenues will exceed US$57 million (€50 million) by 2024. This is up from $18 million (€16 million) in 2019, and is driven by smart security solutions. Juniper’s new research, Smart Homes: Strategic Opportunities, Business Models & Competitive Landscape 2019-2024, found the ‘Do It For Me’ model, with vendors offering advice, installation, maintenance and cloud storage on monthly/yearly subscriptions, is gaining ground. More players, such as Hive, Vivint Smart Home and TP-Link, now offer subscription packages, which broaden the value proposition with…

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Wearable Artificial Intelligence market to exceed 30% growth by 2025, hitting US$180bn

Wearable Artificial Intelligence market

According to a new research report by the market research and strategy consulting firm, Global Market Insights, Inc, the Wearable Artificial Intelligence (AI) Market will reach US$180 billion (€160 billion) by 2025. The explosive growth of smartwatches has been the primary factor propelling the wearable AI market. Continuous improvements in their design and functionality along with availability at lower prices has increased adoption among consumers. Specifically, says the analysts, the introduction of an LTE connectivity feature in smartwatches has provided customers with an alternative to bulky smartphones. Moreover, the convenience…

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Wondrwall makes smart homes autonomous with sensor arrays

Wondrwall

Connected-home technology company Wondrwall has launched what it claims is the world’s first truly smart home-automation system, with the aim of converting “standard homes into intelligent homes” – houses that can make decisions for themselves. The concept is based on replacing standard light switches with new switches that contain 13 different sensors. These monitor temperature, humidity, power, motion, luminosity, and sound. In this way, a typical three-bedroom house could contain a network of more than 100 such sensors, according to the company. The Wondrwall system uses the data from these…

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Notion: HomeAdvisor integrate smart home technology

HomeAdvisor

Notion, the complete home awareness solution powered by a multi-purpose IoT smart home sensor, today announced a first-of-its-kind integration with HomeAdvisor, the Colorado-based marketplace connecting homeowners to prescreened professionals for home projects. The integration with HomeAdvisor, called Plumber Matching, marks Notion’s first partnership with a service provider to enable homeowners to immediately contact a local and available plumber when a water leak is detected. Notion’s low-cost and easy-to-install home monitoring system gives homeowners the flexibility to monitor and receive real-time alerts on things happening across their entire home—from motion and…

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Multiple flaws found in Wink and Insteon smart home systems

Security researchers have found a number of vulnerabilities in two popular smart home systems. The flaw could lead to hackers gaining control of such systems. According to researchers at IT security company Rapid7, both Wink’s Hub 2 and Insteon’s Hub devices leave sensitive credentials insecure on their associated Android apps. Both devices are designed to connect various home IoT products and manage home automation. Additionally, they claim, Wink’s cloud-based management API does not properly expire and revoke authentication tokens, and the Insteon Hub uses an unencrypted radio transmission protocol for…

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Anticipating the Smart World of 2027: A Billion Cameras and AI, Oh My…

Nvidia went to China last week and made a series of interesting announcements having to do with smart cities and autonomous cars. (The video is worth watching.) IBM made an announcement on advancements in tying the Weather Channel to its Watson artificial intelligence engine and targeted marketing. We also found out about Oculus’ Fall in Love VR project which is kind of like The Bachelor or The Bachelorette, but the significant other is a hot computerized avatar. Intel announced Loihi, a new AI processor that emulates the human brain. All…

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Circadia is here to save sleep tech

We talk to the London startup that wants to actually improve your sleep. “The first generation of over-simplistic sleep tracking is over. It’s done, it’s gone, it’s dusted.” So says Circadia founder and CEO Fares Siddiqui who I met at London’s Makerversity campus to talk about why Fitbit, Johnson & Johnson and mattress startup Casper are interested in what his small team of designers and engineers thinks comes next. He points out that the ‘sleep aid’ industry, which includes everything from pillows to drugs to devices, is set to be…

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