Alarm.com made two announcements at in conjunction with CES earlier this month.
First, Alarm.com announced plans for smart home voice control for lighting and smart thermostats through Amazon Echo. Alarm.com users will be able to control the lighting and comfort in their smart home with the hands-free convenience of voice commands. With Amazon Echo and the Amazon cloud-based voice service Alexa, a simple spoken command, such as “Alexa, turn on the living room lights,” triggers a response in the home.
With the ability to control customized light groups and names, Alarm.com users can create personalized controls for their home. They can quickly adjust all the lights in a particular room or floor and can name specific lights to enable unique commands such as, “Alexa, turn on the Christmas tree lights.”
Alarm.com also plans to expand voice control and enable new interactions through Alexa’s Skills Kit.
“Making the smart home easy to use is a key to helping consumers realize the full potential of the new technology. Amazon Echo with Alexa voice control offers an intuitive and useful way for Alarm.com users to make their smart home safer and more comfortable,” said Jay Kenny, senior vice president of marketing at Alarm.com. “Alarm.com integrates devices across the home into a single solution, which we are making easier to use every day through intuitive apps and new user experiences that go beyond the traditional app.”
The Amazon Echo and Alexa integration makes voice control the latest in a wide range of options for controlling an Alarm.com smart home. Users can already interact with their homes via the Web, smartphone and tablet apps (iOS, Android and Windows Phone) and apps for wearables and smart TVs.
Next, Alarm.com launched a new app for Apple TV, available now from the App Store. Users can watch live feeds from video cameras around their property in real-time HD, using Apple TV’s tvOS interface and remote.
The Alarm.com app for Apple TV allows users to quickly view live footage and control any Alarm.com-powered camera from anywhere. Users can expect seamless navigation from other Apple TV apps to the Alarm.com app to view a live feed from indoor and outdoor cameras with infrared night vision options. The Apple TV Siri remote with touch surface also controls Alarm.com’s pan and tilt cameras, making it easy to see more of what’s happening around the home.
“The emergence of new user interfaces is creating opportunities to make our smart home services even more accessible and useful to our millions of subscribers,” said Kenny. “We look for ways to leverage new interfaces like Apple TV to make the smart home more useful every day.”
The Alarm.com app, which is available now in the Apple TV App Store, also supports multiple Alarm.com accounts in a single interface. Users with multiple properties can easily see what’s going on at home and check in on their office, store or second home.
