Interesting addition to the smart home. From The Verge:
If 2016 is the year of connected gadgets doing all the things smartphones can’t, Sony is taking the idea to the extreme. The company’s newest appliance, the Multifunction Light, performs an absurd amount of functions you’d never expect — and maybe don’t even want — out of an overhead fixture. (But don’t expect whoever named it to win any creativity awards.)
It can communicate with other appliances like air conditioning units and thermostats with data from its humidity sensors, talk to your TV using infrared to turn it on when its motion sensors detect you’re in the room, and act as a household intercom system equipped with speakers and a microphone. It even has a microSD card slot for some completely inexplicable reason. All of these functions can be controlled via a smartphone app when you’re inside or away from your home.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
