AT&T Digital Life protects your home, turns on lights
NEW ORLEANS–AT&T is proposing some serious branching out with its new services for securing your home, and managing its appliances remotely from your smartphone ortablet.
At CTIA 2012, AT&T showed off its concept with a demo house equipped in the big Easy’s lovely Garden District.
Let’s tackle security first. AT&T lays physical sensors on the doors and windows. if they trip, or if the smoke detector trips, a couple of things happen. first, any response you’ve programmed goes into effect. For instance, you might decide to set it to blare the radio or TV, or sound an alarm or flash a strobe light.
Second, there’s the traditional security response, where AT&T’s 24-hour security monitoring team receives the message. It’ll call your preselected contacts, and if nobody picks up, it’ll also dispatch a team, or call the firefighters, or the cops, depending on the nature of the alarm.
Then there’s the app itself, which includes a schematic of your home (see the slideshow for app shots demoed on aniPad). From the app, you can select a room or area of the home to interact with, controlling your lights, appliances, window blinds, doors, security cameras, TV, and virtually any appliance with a simple on-and-off switch (dimmer lights included).
How? It’s an elegant concept, in which AT&T supplies “appliance modules,” essentially Internet-connected plugs you push into your outlets. you can then plug the coffee maker, the lamp, smoke detector, radio, thermostat, and so on, into those plugs.
Appliances communicate with the master controller (this is what AT&T professionally installs) over a variety of protocols.
While you can turn devices on and off manually, there’s an automated aspect as well. you can set up limitless profiles for different scenarios, for instance, when you go to sleep, when you go on vacation, and when you want to fill the house with music.
You can control the Digital Life app completely remotely.
The demo was a little disjointed, with separate tours in each room, but there’s still the sense of how the app would work on a day-to-day basis.
On the surface of things, it’s a pretty cool system, and one that will surely become synonymous with home security. After all, AT&T will be able to monitor security through those cameras and through its master controller.
On the other hand, it could be potentially costly. AT&T hasn’t announced pricing for the system yet. There’s also the question of failover: what happens if you lose power or connectivity?
AT&T has certainly offered an interesting glimpse of its security vision. AT&T’s trials this summer in Dallas and Atlanta will certainly start answering some of the deeper questions about the service’s ins and outs.
Come back for more hands-on photos and video of AT&T’s Digital Life house. Catch all the latest news from CTIA 2012.
Article updated at 5:15 p.m. PT to correct the remote range of use. an AT&T representative originally described the range as “line of sight,” referring to the demo station and not to the completed service.
AT&T exec runs through new home security, automation biz
Documentary photographer Rick Rocamora is a big guy accustomed to carrying around big cameras and the occasional Leica. After getting an iPhone for Christmas, the US-based Filipino decided to go small.he discovered that it enables him to take pictures with hardly anyone noticing, an advantage especially in the street photography that he loves to do. he answered our questions via email.You're a documentary photographer with numerous exhibits through the years. Why shoot with an iPhone camera now? First of all, any camera we use is only a tool in taking pictures. The price or the brand of the camera does not influence the storytelling aspect of documentary photography. More and more photographers are using the iPhone for their professional work and winning awards for their work. Damon Winter of the New York Times won an award for his work in Afghanistan. during the Arab Spring, many photographers were filing pictures using iPhones because they can blend easily with the crowd and not be prominent and be targeted. my iPhone was a Christmas gift and when I arrived in the Philippines on March 15th, I challenged myself to test the limits of the iPhone for the kind of photography that I do. To my surprise, it is an excellent tool. my excitement is similar to when I got my first Leica camera. it is so fun that sometimes I don't take my DSLR out. Compared to some point-and-shoot cameras, the iPhone 4 and 4s are the same if not better. One advantage of the iPhone is when you touch the screen to click the shutter, there is minimal lag. some point-and-shoot cameras still have delays when you click the shutter. it has unique characteristics especially if you are using some of the apps. You don't have to carry an additional camera bag around and if you have to document something quick it can be in your pocket ready to fire. Don't you sacrifice anything in quality? it is like comparing apples and oranges. The more expensive cameras can provide better quality enlargements and resolutions, but the iPhone provides the convenience of having a camera with you all the time. Most of the pictures in the selection were taken while I was in a taxi or walking around. I put to a test one of the images and enlarged it up to 24"x 24" and it looked good enough to be displayed in any exhibition space. good photography is not about the camera, but about how we manage light, the timing when we click the shutter to capture moments, and how we use elements and details in a scene. Is there anything you can’t do with an iPhone that you can do with your Leica or other SLR? The iPhone does not have a built-in motor drive and will not be good for serious sports photography. it is good enough to capture news pictures for the web and dailies that do not require very high resolution images. One advantage of an iPhone, like shooting a Leica, is it is very small and I can pretend to be just playing around and not look like a professional. The best way to use the iPhone is for images with simple backgrounds, without too many details. Why black and white? my iPhone only shoots in color and I am using the Hipstamatic app in my pictures. there are apps that can convert the iPhone to shoot in black and white. my work flow is to convert the color hipstamatic image using Lightroom, similar to the same process I use for my DSLR digital files. as a photographer, my preference is black and white because my goal is to get an emotional reaction to my images rather than drawing attention to the colors of the image. What's the reason behind the square format of your iPhone photos? I am using Hipstamatic and it provides a square frame. I never shot with a square frame before and in the beginning I have to make adjustments in composition. but based on the results, the square format was not bad at all. I think it gives my iPhone photography a distinct look compared to my other work. How does it perform in low light? The iPhone has a built in flash but since I rarely use flash even with my regular cameras, all the images in this collection were taken without flash. The quality diminishes when shooting at low light. The images are grainier and since you cannot control shutter speed, there is a tendency to get blurred pictures when there is a movement. Your favorite subject for iPhone photography? Street photography and portraiture. actually I already did a serious photo essay with an iPhone in Angeles, Pampanga recently. if you learn photography on an iPhone or other phone, will it be harder to learn to use an SLR? Photography is more than learning how to use a camera. Like any other camera, we have to master its functions and use these efficiently. What is more challenging in photography is how to capture moments, develop our timing, and understand composition. More than anything else, we have to be good visual storytellers.What should beginners know when learning mobile phone photography? Start shooting using the basic functions. Shoot a lot and don't get disappointed by failures. Learn how to manage light and most of all, don't be afraid to get close to your subjects. Have fun. - Interview by Howie Severino/ Roehl Niño Bautista, GMA News
By Samantha Boh my paper Friday, Apr 20, 2012
