Need a remote control to manage your life? Find your phone, turn on the lights and start the coffee––all from the same interface.
Remember how great it was when the universal remote control arrived for the television? One controller for all the TV tasks. Now, in the age of the Internet of Things (IoT), we are managing many apps for ourselves and our smart home. Need to turn up the heat in the house? There’s an app for that. Need to get the lights? There’s an app for that. Need a ride to the party? There’s an app for that, too.
In an effort to ease us out of app-overload, a company called Tativ4 is creating a universal controller for the smart home that can manage disparate IoT devices from brands like Nest, Google, Logitech, Spotify, LIFX and Hue. The product, called FetchitGO, has 16 user-configurable buttons that can simplify the management of smart devices in the house. Start the coffee pot, turn on the lights, remind yourself to take your medication, call an Uber––all from the same interface. And, according to the company, through machine learning, the IoT devices “begin to mirror the personality of the household.” (Anyone sure what that means?)
Through a partnership with IFTTT, FetchitGO can control IoT devices by using “recipes” that allow them to work together, providing control of almost anything. Each button is an action that requires one click to activate. And, mounted on the wall, it is accessible to everyone in the home.
"In a home and in a family situation, you need things done at a family level, (with) a combined functionality that the whole family shares,” said Lokesh Johri, CEO and co-founder of FetchitGO. “We are convinced FetchitGO is the right product to bring to the market for all family homes.”
After a successful Kickstarter campaign, FetchitGO is set to start shipping later this summer.
