Connected Devices

March 2021

Many of you may of heard of “The Internet of Things” or “Connected Devices” but may not know what that means.

In simple terms, it means you can buy something like a kettle and connect to it from your smart phone and control it.

Your first reaction might be “Why on earth would I want to do that”. It certainly was mine.

Despite being a techy for since I was at school, it’s taken me a while to understand why I should be existed about “The Internet of Things” or “Connected devices”.

I was determined not to get involved too early and have kept a watching brief.

Not through conscious thought, I now have five, yes five “Internet of Things” in my house. How did that happen and why are they useful?

Dash camera

This came with a handy app that makes setting up the camera easy. It allows you to see what the camera is seeing from your smartphone and also easily set settings without going through the small buttons on the camera. Additionally, it allows you to download videos and pictures on to your smartphone.

Tyre Inflator

Yes, I have got a tyre inflator!! This connects to your smart phone using Bluetooth and allows you to find your vehicle from a database to lookup tyre pressures, or you can enter them manually. You can then pump up your tyres to the correct pressure right from your smart phone. It can also remind you to check your tyres after a certain period of time.

Meat Thermometer

This is a meat thermometer that you put in to the meat, fish, poultry etc before cooking. You then put your food in to a “heat source” at any temperature you see fit. The app asks you what you are cooking and then lets you set how well cooked you want the food, with national guidelines on the right temperature. The app monitors the internal temperature of the food and indicates when you should take the food out of the heat source (oven, BBQ etc). It then uses resting time to complete the cooking of the food. We’ve had some amazingly succulent meat, fish etc as a result as we always used to overcook food especially chicken.

Smart Kettle

Our kettle broke, so this came up on Amazon with good reviews. Great price so why not. This thing is amazing. With the app, I can control the water temperature and also have the kettle start to boil as I approach the house!. Its also great in the morning as you can fill the kettle up before you go to bed. When you wake up, you can use the App or ask Alexa to start the kettle. When you get downstairs, it’s ready for the first brew. A very modern day teas made.

Smart Plug

A smart plug uses voice to switch something on and off. You can do this via Alexa, so you can say “Bedroom lamp on” / “Bedroom lamp off”. We’ve used it as the socket is behind a hard to get too socket and we were not using the lamp. Now we con conveniently switch the lamp on and don’t need to get out of bed to switch it off.