If you’re reading this, you’ve probably already seen examples of successful smart home technology at work. People turning their lights on and off with voice is the most common example that comes to mind. Upon investigation, though, it becomes obvious this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Houses can become aware of which rooms are occupied and turn off heating/AC and lights where they aren’t needed. Garage doors can open automatically to welcome us home. Mirrors can show us important notifications while we shave or put on our makeup. Sinks can tell us when they’re leaking.

Each of these events can be triggers that cause other things to happen. These events can be internal or external. Using these events and a rules engine, we can create scenarios like “when the sun goes down at my house, turn on my outside lights”, or “when I go on vacation, turn on random lights throughout the house for random times to simulate someone being home”. The possibilities are endless, limited only by our imaginations.

But so far, the promise has not met the demand. It seems like each manufacturer of smart appliances created their own app to go with it, and you can only manage their devices from that app. Then we need a third app to create rules to manage all the individual devices and notifications. It’s been very disjointed, complex, and tedious.

As engineers and researchers, going to a page about IoT topics and seeing code on the home page isn’t intimidating. But to a homeowner who wants to simply set their house up to take advantage of these things, it’s a show-stopper.

Our goal at Electraport is to create a simple, unified solution for smart homeowners and small businesses to manage their devices securely and with peace of mind. We take privacy very seriously and our products are intended to make your data continue to be your data.