The big news this week was Google’s planned acquisition of Nest Labs, but as Jim Zemlin, Rudi Streif and Eric Brown all wrote on Linux.com, the Nest thermostat and smoke alarm are a few among many Linux-based home automation products in the spotlight heading into 2014.
“It’s about a lot more than your coffee maker or your Android-based toothbrush. I’m finding more companies talking about how to use open source software as a defacto standard for integrating your home, office, car and more in ways we can’t even image yet,” Zemlin writes. “Linux and open source are primed to be the foundation for this future.”
In this video from CES, Qualcomm demonstrates its own Linux-based home automation platform AllJoyn, the open source project supported by the AllSeen Alliance (a Linux Foundation collaborative project.) Companies such as LG, Panasonic, Haier, Sharp and Silicon Image are working with Qualcomm to make the various devices that comprise the Internet of Things work together using AllJoyn. Qualcomm product manager Liat Ben-Zur shows how the system can monitor connected appliances, lighting, security, door knobs, TVs, and even a teddy bear, and send notifications to each other via AllJoyn.
“When you open up that wine door it actually senses that the door’s been opened,” Ben-Zur says in the video. “That wine refrigerator then sends a message out through AllJoyn…”
Did she say wine? Sold!
For more of our coverage on Linux-based home automation at CES see:
Google’s Nest Acquisition Shines a Light on Linux Home Automation