Insteon calls on Cortana to control the smart home

Table of Content

• Cortana Skills
• The Cortana smart home: Your need-to-know on Microsoft's voice assistant
• Apple’s Emergency SOS via Satellite Arrives In European Countries
• How to Fix Google Drive Video Is Still Processing Error (6 Methods)
• Cortana no longer work with smart home devices
• What devices [used to] work with Cortana?
• Insteon

And get a daily digest of news, geek trivia, and our feature articles. Inside the train station above the platforms you will find an ATM and a grocery store as well as a Starbucks and some smaller food outlets nearby. You will arrive in Terminal 2 and the train station is in/near Terminal 1. There is a bus shuttle that leaves from the arrivals area in Terminal 2 to take you to an entrance of the train station (5-10 minute walk form that entrance to the platforms). The bus ride itself only takes a few minutes but there is only one bus every minutes so if you have just missed one it will take a bit longer. But you never know if everything is going to be on time so you might want to allow a little extra time if you are buying a non-refundable restricted train ticket .

Geeni’s smart bulbs and power products work with Cortana, and its smart surge protector even lets you name and control each outlet separately or in groups with Cortana. Before the update, Cortana could control smart home devices, such as Nest, Wink, Insteon, SmartThings, Philips Hue, TP-Link Smart Plugs, and Honeywell Thermostats. This virtual assistant used to work with smart devices, but that's not the case anymore. The metallic-looking Invoke comes in two colours – Pearl Silver and Graphite Black – and features a blue, glowing light on the top.

Cortana Skills

Cortana was the voice control that powered the Harman Kardon Invoke smart speaker. Yet, Microsoft recently pulled support for Cortana on iOS and Android devices outside of the U.S. last year, including the U.K., Canada, Australia, Germany and four more countries. Addressing Cortana as "Insteon," users will be able to tell the virtual assistant to do things like turn connected appliances on and off, blast the air conditioning, or run pre-programmed lighting scenes. Windows users are already able to monitor and control their Insteon devices directly from customizable Live Tiles on their phones, tablets, and PCs. Cortana could control many third-party smart home devices, from Honeywell thermostats to TP-Link smart plugs, but that integration also appears now to be ending. Even more, Microsoft will end all support for Cortana in older versions of Window, so not updating to the latest software to keep Cortana working is not going to be possible.

Microsoft is also going to make it harder to access Cortana going forward, telling users that they will have to be logged into their work, school or Microsoft account before using Cortana. Wink is another smart home system that incorporates lighting, but also goes beyond that into home security, too. To get started you need the $100 hub, but there are various other bundles you can acquire which include things like smart plugs and motion sensors.

The Cortana smart home: Your need-to-know on Microsoft's voice assistant

Once all of that is done, Cortana can use what it knows about your preferences and schedule to tweak recommendations and experiences. This space is already pretty crowded with Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri jostling for our attention, and playing nice with pretty much every gadget and appliance we might allow into our apartments or houses. So Microsoft has plenty of catching up to do and it's not level yet.

Cortana's only real drawback is the limited availability of smart home features. Right now, if you're not in North America, you're pretty much out of luck. The latest version of Windows 10 ended Cortana's remaining skills... So sad, but we have to say goodbye to the idea of a new competitor to Alexa, Siri, and Google assistant. Microsoft tried to introduce Cortana as Alexa and Siri competitor for AI personal assistant, but this project didn't work as expected. To connect your respective smarthome accounts to Cortana, open up your Start menu and start typing something to bring up Cortana.

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Philips Hue is an incredible smart lighting system that basically works with everything. Cortana can directly interact with it, but there are official apps and third-party apps alike available across iOS, Android and Windows. The only smart speaker you can buy right now with Cortana integration, but also only costs $99. The speaker part is superb, harman/kardon's hardware both looks and sounds excellent. Even though we may finally be close to seeing the Cortana-enabled Harman Kardon Invoke speaker arrive in stores, Microsoft is still lagging behind its rivals in the smart home race.

This is referred to as 'Cortana lighting' but Harman also talks about a 'touch to surprise' user interface on the top of the speaker. While Microsoft is hardly leading the connected home charge, it has its own smart home ecosystem in Cortana, its voice assistant. Applets, a series of motion triggers on IFTTT platform, can also create other possibilities for Cortana users. For example, a command “Hey Cortana, movie time” could turn down the Philips Hue lights, turn on the Harmony TV set the Nest thermostat to the comfortable temperature.

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Since you have more time now, there is also a little food court one level above the check-in counters in T2. Cortana uses natural language processing so, like the other AI assistants, you should be able to have a conversation with it rather than barking specific commands. For instance, it knows that "I need a taxi" and "call me a cab" mean the same thing. Microsoft reckons 145 million people already use Cortana, and it does have some advantages over the rest; for instance, it integrates with Microsoft software, which could be really useful for work planning. The announcement comes just as Insteon is starting to sell its home-automation products and starter kits in Microsoft Stores across the US. Insteon products are also available online in places like Europe, Asia, and Australia.

I made my connecting flight to Helsinki with 5 minutes to spare. Or for example, since both Geeni’s smart bulbs and power products work with Cortana, users are able to name and control each power outlet separately or in groups. When they say “Hey Cortana, turn off the living room lamps,” then all outlets that’s grouped into the “living room lamps” will be turned off. LIFX is another smart lighting system that doesn't require a hub and has some quite affordable bulbs. The official app for Windows 10 may no longer be supported, but with Cortana you can still interact with your lights with ease. Ecobee hasn't ever officially supported Windows, but thanks to excellent third-party support its a smart thermostat we recommend highly.

The company may be trying to catch up, and has added a new "Connected Home" section to the Cortana Notebook menu in some Windows 10 PCs. After Apple officially joined the smart speaker battlefield with its HomePod launch, Microsoft has finally strengthened Cortana’s capability in the smart home context. Originally hailing from Troy, Ohio, Ry Crist is a text-based adventure connoisseur, a lover of terrible movies and an enthusiastic yet mediocre cook. A CNET editor since 2013, Ry's beats include smart home tech, lighting, appliances, and home networking. A pioneering recommendation platform where you can research, discover, buy, and learn how to connect and optimize smart devices.

TP-Link has a range of smart home accessories under its Kasa brand that while requiring an iOS or Android device to set up, has full Cortana integration from there on out. You're not getting bulbs or anything with Insteon, rather it's a system designed to help you automate your home. From there you've got a wide ecosystem of sensors and add-ons you can connect to the hub to automate your entire home. The Glas looks downright futuristic with its translucent display, and it'll be packed with features for not only warming and cooling your home, but monitoring your energy use. It's not yet on sale, but pre-orders are slated to begin sometime in Spring 2018. The Johnson Controls Glas is a smart thermostat that not only harnesses the power of Cortana — and is pretty much the best-looking thermostat you'll find.

What devices [used to] work with Cortana?

Microsoft primarily pulled the plug on Cortana's smart home ambitions this week, by shifting the assistant's focus on personal support, and away from connected products. The update will come with the latest version of Windows 10, which will effectively terminate Cortana as a competitor to Alexa and Google assistant. One trend that has been observed is the connection of these assistants with intelligent home devices so that users can control them through the assistant itself. The tech giant Microsoft has taken a step in this direction and brought device support for Cortana to this category. Cortana is the tech giant Microsoft’s personal assistant, being available on devices with Windows 10 and in geographic regions defined by Microsoft. In India, it is already possible to activate and configure Cortana but it is not yet possible to take full advantage of the virtual assistant since it is not yet designed for our country.

Insteon is a fee-free home-automation network built around a dual-band connection that combines wireless mesh networking with existing power line connections. To date, Insteon's product line features over 200 smart-home devices, including sensors, switches, and cameras. Geeni's products have some neat features that work with Cortana.