This Device Will House Sit for You
Bye-bye nanny cams. Point, designed by Form Devices in San Francisco, is a new kind of smart tech that incorporates things we’ve seen before (smoke detector, air quality monitor, etc.) but they’re doing it with home security in mind. Point pays attention to sounds, air quality, people coming and going and other signals in a subtle way so that your home still feels homey and not like a high-security facility. It’s like spying without really spying.
By integrating with a mobile app and wireless capability, Point can tell you all sorts of things about what’s happening when you’re not at home. While you’re away, it can alert you if your babysitter is smoking, for example, or if your cousin is having a huge party in your living room while she’s house sitting for you. It sounds an alarm if a window breaks or if it senses a fire. And it can let you know if there’s a risk of mold by keeping an eye on humidity and air quality levels as well.
You customize your own device to do what you need it to do, since every home is different. With more and more Airbnb hosts out there, Point would be a non-invasive way to host guests and (sort of) know what’s going on at your place. You can set the device up to notify you if the noise levels are too loud after 11 p.m., and it’ll even glow as a reminder for guests to keep it down. It can even let you know if someone moves the Point device around.
Point has already been successfully funded on Kickstarter, but you can still back the project until December 4. For $79, you’ll have your own Point device for a single room or studio apartment — and for $299, you can receive three devices to cover more square footage.
How do you think this will compare to other similar devices like Nest and Lyric? Let us know in the comments!
