IoT Gift Guide: For Those Beyond the Early-Adopter
2017 was a big year for the Internet of Things (IoT), with more and more devices bringing new levels of usefulness thanks to the power of connectivity. With the holidays quickly approaching, it’s time to start shopping for the perfect gifts for your loved ones.
Lance Looper with Silicon Labs posted a blog posting where you can find more IoT gifts for just about everyone on your list, from teens to grandma. Gifting connected devices can make people’s lives more efficient, safe, healthy and fun. Instead of sticking to people’s wish lists, give them something they can’t live without, but they don’t even know it yet. The following is from Looper’s posting:
We’ve taken the guess work out of holiday shopping by curating our favorite Silicon Labs-powered products we have featured over the past year in our IoT Hero blog. Below are some popular giftable IoT devices, ranging from smart lighting to high-fashion wearables to personal transportation.
Electric Skateboard
For those in your family seeking alternative transportation options, look no further than the Inboard M1Electric Skateboard. Powered by a Silicon Labs BLE113 Bluetooth module in both the board and the remote control, the M1 skateboard keeps rider’s feet on the board while mapping streets, detecting road conditions, and keeping the rider in perpetual motion.
The Inboard M1 blends sharp industrial design and functional wireless technology.
Beautifying Decor
After creating the most energy-efficient lightbulb on the market, Nanoleaf started merging art with light and ended up creating unprecedented lighting systems for the home. Powered by Zigbee SoCs and a communications stack from Silicon Labs, Nanoleaf Aurora lighting systems allow people to customize their lights entirely based on their color, mood and timing preferences.
The system was largely inspired by the idea of recreating natural light, so people could experience the same warm, soothing qualities indoors as well—especially during winter when there’s less sunlight hours.
The Aurora lighting system from Nanoleaf offers smart, customizable lighting.
The Pulse integrates speakers and lighting. Another one of our customers, Sengled, has taken lighting to a new dimension by adding a multi-channel music speaker within an actual lightbulb. The Pulse lighting system is a synchronous multi-channel speaker light and the world's first one that can play with a mobile phone.
The Pulse integrates speakers and lighting
Pulse, powered by a Silicon Labs Zigbee solution, can support up to eight lights simultaneously while playing music and can adjust each light to the sound and volume for each speaker, making it the perfect gift for people in your life looking for gadgets to enhance the home entertainment experience.
Ice Fishing Gear
Granted, ice fishing is a highly regional sport, but for those anglers in your life living near ice, how about a device that allows them to stay warm indoors while they wait to get a fish on the line? Deep Freeze Fishing sells Blue Tipz fishing alerts that provide an alert system for fishing lines, freeing the angler to monitor catches from afar.
The product uses the Bluegiga BLE121LR Bluetooth module from Silicon Labs to transmit a fish strike from the flag on the line to the phone of the fisher, giving them the freedom to stay indoors while they fish.
Safety Accessories
It’s easy to find friends and family among your loved ones who A) like jewelry, and/or B) wouldn’t mind an extra safety net if they run into danger. Two Silicon Labs customers, Wisewear and Revolar, have tapped into the safety wearables trend after creating modern connected IoT jewelry to keep people safe.
Wisewear built a wellness wearable product in the form of an exquisite gold or silver bracelet or ring, serving as a panic button, fitness tracker and notification device. The founder of Wisewear created the jewelry solution after his grandfather fell down the stairs at home and no one was there to help him.
Wisewear is one the first jewelry products on the market to integrate sensors and electronics with metal jewelry, tapping the Silicon Labs Wonder Gecko 32-bit MCU to make the fusion of fashion and technology successful.
Wisewear brings the benefits of connectivity to superbly designed jewelry.
Another safety device worth considering for loved ones is Revolar’s Instant Personal Safety device, which hooks onto your clothing, key chain, handbag, etc. and connects to your phone via Bluetooth. If the carrier ever feels threatened or in danger, all the user has to do is press an indiscreet button to send one of three alert levels to their pre-selected loved ones, including a “hey, I’m home or I’m safe” alert, a yellow alert for uncomfortable situations, and a third alert for serious emergencies.
