Meet Tone, the open alternative for Home by Apple
With the arrival of iOS 10 comes Apple’s much anticipated Home App, which allows iOS users to control and automate all of their smart home tech from one single app. The sci-fi vision of a connected home is quickly becoming a reality. Indeed, both Amazon and Google have unveiled smart assistants, and an Apple offering based on the company’s HomeKit system is rumoured to be on the way.
Into the mainstream
In an ideal world, all systems would happily work together in the Lego block-style system that Apple constructed. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. For example, if you own a Nest, the popular smart-learning thermostat produced by a company that was acquired by Google back in 2014, it’s unlikely you’ll ever see the thermostat integrated into Apple’s ecosystem. What Apple attempts to do with standardizing home tech, and bringing it together under a single umbrella, is undoubtedly necessary if the smart home is to break into the mainstream.
Managing your smart home from one single phone operating system is an intimidating proposition when you expect to use home tech for far longer than your next mobile is likely to last. Of course these companies probably plan for their users to upgrade their smart home equipment as often as their phones, but imagine having to replace all your lightbulbs every couple years. Ouch!
Home automation technology is expensive enough as it is; the prospect of having to tie your smartphone purchase into the ecosystem as well might scare off most mainstream consumers. What consumers need is choice. They need to be able to choose between two or more roughly equal ecosystems, and they need to know that picking one side won’t forever lock their home into either Apple or Google’s software.
That’s where Tone comes in.
Centrepiece of your loving room
While Apple tries to force itself in the centrepiece of your loving room with Home, Eneco’s Toon® is already at play where the magic happens. Europe’s leading smart thermostat platform Toon just opened up its API on toonapi.com. Toon is now accessible for developers, designers, startups, corporates and universities to re-imagine smart home and energy solutions. With this community, Toon aims for great smart home apps to be developed, serving its 250.000 (and counting) households.
From now on, everyone can develop on Toon, with their API. Third parties can use the platform to offer home automation services to Toon users. These services will increase sales potential and customer satisfaction for both the developers as Eneco.
Tone your Toon
As an assignment for Dutch energy supplier Eneco, we at Go Weekly created one of these services for Toon, as part of a Sprint for Smart Home services, and cleverly named it Tone (in Dutch Toon is both a boy’s name and means ‘show’). The concept includes a highly visual app designed for Apple’s tvOS. It functions as a down-to-earth interface for your home, where the temperature is just one of the variables in the setup for the perfect room experience. Eneco already decided to further develop the concept for other devices.
Set the Tone
When you choose from one of the pre-installed themes, Tone will automatically adjust the connected home tech to the accompanying mood. So far, lighting, music, temperature, and smart power outlets are included in each unique combination that reflects your current state of mind.
Feel the Room
Hitting the ‘Feel the Room’ button will help you find the perfect theme by Shazaming the current vibe in the room, and adjusting the home tech accordingly.
Try Tone for yourself in the prototype below, as demonstrated at the Eneco stand on TNW Conference Europe 2016 in Amsterdam. Real devices were used to allow people to directly interact with the apps.
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