Honeywell launches smart thermostat competitor to Nest
Honeywell announced today that it launched Lyric, a Wi-Fi enabled thermostat. It is the first product in a forthcoming line of connected home products for the company.
The Lyric thermostat connects to your smartphone, allowing users to adjust the temperature of your home from a smartphone app while you're out of the house. The other benefit: the thermostat tracks the location of your smartphone so that when you're away, and your home is empty, the thermostat turns to energy saving mode and returns to your preferred temperature, using geofencing technology, when you're close to home.
Another feature plugs indoor and outdoor temperature, humidity, and weather into its algorithm to determine the ideal temperature for your home. "No other do-it-yourself Wi-Fi thermostat on the market today does that," Honeywell claims.
Lyric is currently available through professional heating and cooling contractors and will be available at retail stores, for $279, in August.
If you think Lyric looks oddly similar to another smart home product, that's because it does. It looks like Google-owned Nest, whose smart thermostat has already been a source of conflict for the two companies. Now it looks as though Honeywell is going after Nest's smart thermostat (not their first attempt) through imitation.
Apple is also making an attempt to get into the smart home game with its recently announced HomeKit.
It's safe to say that the battle over smart-connected home appliances is heating up.
Photo: Honeywell
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This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com