Last week was the CEBIT show in Hannover, the largest consumer electronics exhibition in Europe.
So we sent Vesternet's Dave Bell over to take a look at the latest devices and trends.
Home Automation Area
The Home Automation area of CEBIT has been growing each year, this time, it was about twice the size than in 2013, and next year's plans look like it will be four times larger again. This echoes the growing interest we see in all home automation - whether it's controlling a couple lights, your heating or the whole house remotely.
Fibaro
With one of the largest stands in the section, Fibaro were showing the recently launched Home Center Lite together with the soon to be launched Motion Sensor.
Interestingly, they were showing the Home Center's running v4 firmware which will have plugins for a range of popular devices from NEST, SONOS, iRobot, Philips HUE, Davis Instruments, and netatmo. From what we've seen, these plugins will have their own 'panel' within the HC firmware (similar to the events and alarm panels available today), this will enable you to add and configure the plugins.
This will be a great jump forward for the Home Center, as until know it has really been focused on Z-Wave, but these plugins will open it up to the much wider world of home automation and multimedia products.
We don't have an exact date on when v4 firmware will be released, but it can't be too far away.
Sitting next to the Home Centers were the tiny motion sensors, these have seen a slight delay in their release, mainly as the HC Lite release was bought forward. We're now expecting them to be released in the next couple of weeks.
eedomus
A relatively new Z-Wave controller vendor, eedomus has seen a lot of success in their native France. Their mid-level controller has some nice new features and could be a good fit with the other Vesternet products. So we're now putting it through its paces in the Vesternet labs and will let you know soon.
See you soon.
Mark