Telstra just launched the first products in its Smart Home range of internet-connected wi-fi gadgets — and they promise to make your life “a little bit easier”. Whether you want to monitor everything that happens in your house or whether you want to make your appliances a little more energy efficient, Telstra has a widget for that.
In a post on the company’s Exchange blog, Telstra’s executive director of home and platinum services John Chambers introduced the new Smart Home family of products, which at the moment includes two different starter kits. There’s a Watch and Monitor kit that includes two motion sensors that can be mounted to windows or doors and a HD indoor camera that can capture video or photos, and an Automation and Energy kit that has two smart power plugs, the same two door or window motion sensors, and an in-house motion sensor.
All those pieces of hardware talk to Telstra’s central Smart Home Hub, which hooks up to your home broadband and wi-fi router to talk to the internet. Telstra is also going to sell other third-party devices that’ll connect to its Smart Home Hub including lightbulbs, a smart thermostat for your air conditioner, a smart door lock, outdoor cameras, and individual pieces from the two starter kits above.
Everything is controlled from your smartphone or tablet, too. Telstra has a Smart Home app for iOS and Android that lets you set up the service, organise individual zones, and set up schedules for your smart home gadgets and recipes for when sensors are triggered. You could tell your air conditioner to turn on when it hits 9:00AM, for example, or get the Smart Home Hub to send you an email whenever a door is opened when you’re not home.
Telstra is pushing Smart Home as a subscription service to potential customers, for a cost of $25 per month on a 24 month plan. That price will get you one of those starter kits, ongoing access to the service, and a Smart Home Hub to control it all. [Telstra]