The system is apparently called Iris (Isn't that Siri backwards?), but it doesn't require you to scan your eye or anything as a password. That's too bad, actually, because that could be a clever ad slogan if somebody could find a way to tie it in with idea of keeping an eye on your home.
At any rate, you soon could be able to monitor and change settings on your home alarm system, your home thermostat, and even your home lights (inside and out). It all works via a cloud-based system that you control through cloud access. Nominally, it's an opportunity to get a smartphone alert if something activates your home alarm system. But it also should allow you to switch the lights on from the garage or turn on the heater while you're on the way (if you've forgotten to set the timer). Presumably, you could also turn off lights that you've left on. This kind of thing could also come in handy if you had access to individual electrical outlets — so you could turn off the iron that you happened to leave on when you rushed out of the house.
But I'm also thinking that this could be an opportunity to have a bit of fun with your housemates or your family or your kids or your pets or whoever else lives in the house with you. If you can access all of these systems from the cloud, then all you need is a Cloud connection. So conceivably, you could be sitting in the home office, door closed, fire up the home computer, and dim the lights in the room where the kids are playing — things like that. Surely that's only the beginning of all kinds of fun. The downside of that, of course, is that you don't want to repeat the experience of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Seriously, though, this is a good step forward in our ability to monitor home security and use technology to improve our lives.
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