Monday, September 25, 2017

New Business Up and Running -- Quantmark Research

Quantmark Research is up and running including the website at https://quantmark.com.  I am making my years of product management and product marketing experience available on a consulting basis.  My customers are startups transitioning the product management function from the founders to a product management function, companies that have a software component that is growing so they need to implement software product management and understand what that entails, and companies who have software product management and marketing functions in place but need an outside eye to improve their function.  I specialize in the product owner function in Agile and aligning business, sales, and product strategy to optimize the business impact of software development.

Monday, September 04, 2017

Smart Garage Door Opener---Liftmaster / Chamberlain MyQ HomeKit Bridge

Our new home came with a MyQ garage door opener but no bridge to connect to the internet.  A bridge was available that would allow the garage door to be controlled from the MyQ application on my phone, but it was not HomeKit compatible.  The HomeKit bridge was promised for June, then for July, finally for August.  I signed up with Chamberlain to be notified when it came.  I read that it was available on my HomeKit news feed; I did not get an e-mail notification.  As far as I know, I ordered the day it was available after a low key announcement.  I got an e-mail in the next day or two saying they were already sold out.

The good news is they refunded the shipping charge (which seemed excessive anyway) and I got it about two weeks after I ordered it.

Installing the bridge was very easy.  Pick a place to install where the cord can reach a plug.  Install the bracket with a couple of screws slide the bridge onto the bracket to plug it in.  Follow the instructions on the MyQ app.  It was strange it never asked for WiFi passwords since my understanding is that the bridge communicates through WiFi.  I thought maybe it got the WiFi password from HomeKit.  In any case it all works without entering a WiFi password.

We love it so far.  We use it most coming back from walks.  We can tell Siri to open the garage instead of punching in the combination on the keypad.  Leaving for walks we can just press the enter button on the keypad to close the garage door since the door was just in use.  Still a little bit easier than saying -- "Hey Siri, close the garage."  But "Hey Siri, open the garage" is easier than entering the combination and pressing Enter.  We haven't left and wondered if we forgot to close the garage.  Next time we do wonder if the garage door is open, we can just look at the HomeKit app or the MyQ app since the garage door is accessible from anywhere.

The only disappointment is minor.  We can't use Siri or the application to turn on the light on the garage door opener. The light is not a separate object on HomeKit pr the MyQ app as near as I can tell.  Not a big deal, just thought it would be fun to control the garage door light through the application.

Chamberlain MyQ also has a line of switches for lights.  Chamberlain press releases imply these switches will be HomeKit compatible with the HomeKit bridge.  They aren't branded HomeKit yet and Apple has not updated their website to show that MyQ is shipping the compatible Bridge for the garage door opener let alone compatible light switches.

I plan to buy two wall light switches and one table lamp to make the lighting in the home a little more usable.  I'll consider the MyQ if they end up fully HomeKit compatible.



Monday, August 28, 2017

Premis HomeKit front door lock

We have had a HomeKit front door lock since June.  I wrote a review of it on Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.com/review/R1JGS0A5E4FVU2/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8

I do love having a smart door lock and HomeKit works well.  I haven't carried a full set of keys in years.  With a smart front door lock, we just grab the set of keys for the car we are bringing and don't carry any other keys.  Our old "smart" door lock wasn't that smart.  It needed to be reprogrammed whenever the batteries changed and it only operated through the combination key pad.  The Premis is HomeKit enabled and works through a key pad, the Premis app, or the HomeKit app.  It can be programmed with one time use combinations, combinations for individuals, or a combination you could share.  If you need to give a contractor access to your home, you can use a one time or temporary code so when they don't need access anymore, they won't have it. We haven't done that yet with this house, but with the app it will be a lot easier to administer than our old lock.  With our old lock it  was difficult enough we just gave out the garage door combination which was a security problem since we didn't change it very often.  

With HomeKit, the door can be opened by asking Siri to open the door or with the HomeKit app.  You can always check the status of the lock (locked or unlocked) from the HomeKit app.  We leave an iPad as our HomeKit controller and the Premis door lock is our only HomeKit devices so far.  I can access it from anywhere as long as I am on the internet.  If I ever wonder if the front door is locked, I can check.

Soon we will have the bridge for the MyQ garage door opener as our second HomeKit device.  Since these are access points to our home, the security that Apple has built into HomeKit and tests for the vendors is important to us.  

Also, love the SmartKey feature of the Kwikset locks that were installed in our Mission Homes NW home.  It was so easy to re-key the Premis to match the other locks.  If we are worried about a lost key or a key in the wrong hands, we can re-key everything in less than 15 minutes.

Hope this helps give an idea of what HomeKit and the Premis lock adds to a house.  I'll write up my experiences with the MyQ garage door once I have had that for awhile.

New House, New Topics

We moved into a new house in February of this year.  That brings a few new topics to this blog.  We are dipping our toes into the waters of home automation with Apple HomeKit.  Information about our newly built neighborhood, Comanche Terrace and quirks of the new house will be shared with neighbors.  That information may be of interest to anyone with an interest in Mission Homes NW, our builder.  Our new neighborhood in Tualatin may also bring some blog posts to light.  So, look for posts on:

Apple HomeKit
Comanche Terrace and Mission Homes NW
Tualatin activities

Ralph