Andy Rubin, the founder of Android and the brain behind the quintessential early aughts phone Sidekick, is back, and this time he has his sights on taking over your home.
After months of teasing, Rubin on Tuesday finally debuted his new company, Essential. The company’s first and primary offering is a phone, but they also announced a competitor to the Amazon Echo and Google Home, also called Home. Rubin’s device is an intelligent speaker and smart home hub, and can be activated by voice, tap, or even a glance.
Yep, that’s right, Essential claims you can activate the home device by simply looking at it.
Essential is far from the first company to employ eye-tracking, which has found applications everywhere from gaming to advertising. Still, it’s terrifying to think of a device in the home that’s constantly watching for you to look at it.
For now, the Essential Home seems to be in concept stages and the released images appear to be renderings rather than photographs. Home comes with its own operating system, Ambient OS, which is an Android-esque approach to software for home devices. The platform is open source and intended to be expanded upon and used with all major software and hardware platforms.
The device reportedly works with SmartThings, HomeKit, Nest, and other smart home platforms, as well as with Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant. Home has both a screen and voice control.
The intelligent assistant can do many of the same things as its competitors, and some self-proclaimed differentiators like “take note of your routines and let you know when something feels off or if a light is left on,” the company said in a blog post. The home is intended to be a hub for all smart home products and connected devices.
“Think of it as an orchestra conductor for your digital instruments — something that can get them to start to work together in new, exciting ways,” the post noted.
Essential is entering a fairly new market but Amazon has a huge head start. Essential’s Home comes with a screen, like Amazon’s Echo Show, and will include proactive notifications like Google Now.
Essential wants to differentiate itself by putting privacy first and limiting cloud usage, the company says. “Essential Home will directly talk to your devices over your in-home network whenever possible to limit sending data to the cloud,” the post stated.
While the Essential Home makes bold claims about being a completely new approach and aims to “feel like you’re interacting with your home, not a gizmo in your living room,” however there’s too little information to actually back up any of the claims. That said, the product is still new so its true capability remains to be seen. According to Wired, the device will come later this year.
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