Gadgetory

today we're at the Sina smart home taking a look at the new smart thermostat from I devices now this thermostat is homekit compatible which means that you don't need a hub to use it but you will need an apple device of some sort like an iPhone or an iPad overall setting up this product is pretty easy if you're familiar with HVAC systems the problem is other smart thermostats will figure out what kind of HVAC system you already have in place this one requires you not only to wire the thermostat but also to go in and enter information about your HVAC system before it starts working properly once the iDevices thermostat is up and running the basics work you can control the temperature of your home on your thermostat or on the mobile app you can also program scenes in which Siri will issue multiple commands simultaneously to various home kit products installed in your home but beyond these basic smart thermostat features the iDevices thermostat doesn't really offer a whole lot currently there's no geofencing feature that allows the thermostat to know whether you're home or away there's no algorithm that helps your thermostat learn your personal heating and cooling patterns over times and really other than $150 price point at which it's being offered on the iDevices website there's not a whole lot to distinguish it from its competitors after talking with developers behind this product I can tell you that certain firmware and software upgrades will be happening sometime in the future to bring some of these lacking features up to date at present though I can only recommend this for early adopters of homekit technology check out all of our smart thermostat coverage at cnet.com at the CNET smart home I'm Dave Freese