One day, we will have the easy smart home experience that everyone has promised, but we need some talented people who really understand why smart homes we know are broken to fix it. Developer Bastian Andelefski has just created a simple iOS application that relies on augmented reality and the iPhone’s ultra-wideband U1 chip, making it easy to control a room full of smart devices.
Like self-driving cars and paperless offices, smart homes are a tempting idea that is expected to revolutionize the way we interact with our families. But the concept we promised and the way smart homes work today are two completely different things. We are getting closer and closer to an era: the house will immediately recognize every command you issue, and every electrical appliance and electrical device can be operated remotely, and can even run autonomously after knowing your likes and dislikes.
That's not the smart home we have now. Not all of this intelligence is invisible and easy. We have countless mobile apps to choose from, and as companies try to make their smart devices and protocols an industry standard, there are more and more competing standards. As the universal smart home standard called Matter gains traction, more and more companies agree to make their smart devices work well together, but there is still a lot of room for improvement and clever ways to simplify the smart phone Interactivity, as Andelefski demonstrated.
With the help of a custom iOS application called Point, Andelefski has made full use of the ultra-wideband U1 chip that Apple has included in its smartphones since iPhone 11 (HomePod mini and AirTags also have this technology, but it is not available to third parties) and through Apple’s The augmented reality enabled by the ARKit platform to create a smart home interface is as intuitive as the wireless TV remote control we have been using for decades.
Ultra-wideband is another wireless protocol that uses short-range high-frequency radio signals to accurately locate and communicate with other nearby devices. Compared with Bluetooth and GPS, it provides better performance and higher accuracy. The Apple U1 chip has a limited field of view in the iPhone, but by combining it with the spatial perception of augmented reality, Andelefski's app works like the Find My app, so HomeKit-compatible smart home devices such as light bulbs appear on the screen The point allows the user to simply point to a point to control.
Depending on the type of device pointed to by the iPhone and the Point application, context-sensitive controls will automatically appear on the screen. For basic smart bulbs, a simple power button and brightness slider will appear, but for more expensive color-changing bulbs, an adjustable color wheel will also be added. In the case of a thermostat, the temperature dial will be displayed.
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In Andelefski's video, all of this can run easily and seamlessly, but unfortunately, the application is just a prototype and requires some expensive ultra-wideband development hardware to run. However, this setting is not necessarily unique to the Andelefski family. iOS developers hope that hardware manufacturers can help turn this prototype into an affordable consumer product, but anyone who has worked hard to make their home smarter may Will be very happy to invest a fortune in this upgrade.