New app allows smart home devices to 'talk'

Washington, Dec 14: Imagine a lamp that turns down the volume of your TV when you dim the lights or a car that switches on your home air conditioner when you leave the office!

A new app may make this possible. MIT researchers have created an augmented reality app that lets you link together smart objects around you just by drawing connections with your finger between them.

The Reality Editor smartphone app aims to give users the power to fully control the smart objects in their lives.

For example, a lamp can turn down the volume on your TV when you dim the lights, a light switch can also turn off your television, or a car that switches on your home air conditioner in the summer when you leave the office.

"Imagine a future where everything around you can be controlled," said Valentin Heun of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)'s Fluid Interfaces Lab, who developed the app.

The smartphone app uses fingerprint-like codes that identify smart objects when viewed within the app, 'Fastcodesign.com' reported.

It then calls up a literal HTML webpage, representing that object's corresponding functionality, and overlays it on the gadget so that users can programme it.

PTI