Misfit Wants You to Control Your Home with the Flash
Even if the battle for your wrist hasn't been won yet, Misfit is trying to win the battle for your home. The company announced today that its inexpensive $50 Flash fitness tracker will soon be able to control smart home objects like lights and thermostats, as well as things like music players and messaging apps.
While there's no official release date for the new features, Misift put out a video showing some of the things you'll be able to do with Flash as a controller on your wrist. In the video, Misfit's in-app wake up alarm goes off, triggering the Nest thermostat to automatically change the temperature of the house. Also, the double-tap gesture is used to do things like start a Spotify playlist, send a Yo message and even take a smartphone photo from far away.
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We first saw Misfit jump into the smart home category at CES 2015, where the company debuted its first smart light bulb called Bolt. As the wristband senses you going from deep to light sleep, it can trigger Bolt to turn on gradually. The bulb can glow in over 16 million colors, and you can control it from Misfit's Flash and Shine trackers by double tapping the only button on the device.
It seems like sleep is the gateway for many companies with fitness trackers to enter the smart home sphere. Jawbone recently announced a partnership with Big Ass Fans to integrate its Up24 band to control the company's Haiku with SenseME smart ceiling fan. When the band senses you falling asleep, it tells the ceiling fan to monitor the room's temperature, automatically adjusting throughout the entire night to ensure you don't wake up too hot or too cold. Misfit already has a smart sleep system called Beddit, which looks like a belt that lays over your bed and tracks your sleep time and cyclings, when you fall asleep and wake up, and heart rate as well.
Certain features of these new Misfit partnerships seem more useful than others. Controlling Spotify from your wrist while getting ready in the morning is a huge convenience, but Yo is a limited messaging system to say the least. If nothing else, Misfit's smart home effort shows that companies with fitness trackers are moving into other areas. With the smart home space growing, those intelligent pedometers on your wrist may make it easier for you to control your house.
Valentina Palladino is a senior writer for Tom's Guide. Follow her at @valentinalucia. Follow Tom's Guide at @tomsguide and on Facebook.
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