NETAMO LAUNCH CHATBOT

The French company, Netatmo, who make ‘smart-homes’ through the creation of specialised household products; have released a chatbot on Facebook Messenger to enable another way to control this technology.

Netatmo’s products focus on four aspects of a home; security – through security devices that use facial recognition software to detect burglars; weather – a weather station that analyses the internal and external environment, and notifies you of the CO2 levels; air – a home coach that monitors the humidity/noise levels in your home, and alerts you when these are too high; and energy – a thermostat that allows you to change the temperature easily.

The chatbot is live and fully functioning for the English language, whilst other languages will follow. The bot can answer simple commands like ‘turn the lights off in the kitchen’, and it can also answer more complex questions like ‘who is at home right now?’. Netatmo have stated that the bot will become smarter the more you use it.

Netatmo are still a small company, who haven’t taken over the market just yet, but they are working on other ‘futuristic’ projects. They have partnered with BNP Paribas Real Estate to build handy gadgets in around 140 apartments, some of which include sensors in the windows so they automatically close when it starts to rain, or blinds that are drawn at a specific time, set by the user.

The function of the chatbot makes life easier for the user; as does this innovative technology, but does it really add value? Or is it just another way to show off to your neighbour?