Gadgetory

two years ago a smart home startup called umi's successfully crowdfunded 1.7 million dollars for a new starter kit for the connected living space and here it is the only home smart home system it comes with this dedicated control tablet an Umi Cube camera hub a smart switch for turning lamps fans and other appliances on and off and two color-changing smart bulbs one of the really nifty things about goomy's system is that all of the gadgets have near-field communications built-in or NFC for short with NFC two devices can connect to each other just by being in close proximity so when I bring the tablet up to the bulb like this it starts to change colors and pairs up automatically just like that really easy way to set up your system Lumia offers a range of other gadgets you can add to your set at a la carte style and the system also syncs up with nest philips hue and you can connect it with alexa too though I wasn't able to test that part out because movies Alexis skill is still a work in progress all in all it's still a pretty good pitch as far as smart home platforms go and as I tested it out here in the CNET smart apartment everything worked reliably well you can create custom animations right on the tablet that will do things like turn lights on when motion is detected you can use the tablet as a makeshift universal remote and you can use Ruby as a basic DIY security system - the big problem is that this starter kit costs $700 $700 to put that into perspective let's take another look at the kit replace those two bulbs with a pair of lifx bulbs replace that smart switch with a Belkin Wemo mini swap a nest cam bin for that Gumi cube and replace the tablet controller with an Amazon echo show those are all well reviewed alternatives with better features than what Lumia offers and the total cost for them all is just 585 dollars and that's if you're buying everything full price for me that's just too tough to reconcile I like it with me is a simple no fuss smart home system but there's just no way I'd recommend spending $700