Neurio Adds Hard-Wired Brain To Your Connected Home

Your home and the 'Internet of Things' is an interesting concept, but there are so many devices out there aiming to help you do similar things. It's maddening. Can one device rule them all? The answer to that is likely 'no', but one can potentially provide the backbone to make other devices useful. Starting today, you can pick up Neurio, a device meant to become the "brain of your home", which will provide an open platform for others to build upon and link their devices.

Neurio isn't like other connected home devices, though. The small device resides in your breaker panel, where you'll have to hard-wire it into your home. A small WiFi antennae communicates with your home network (and an app on your phone), which allows you to monitor your energy use in real-time. If you've got a solar home, it can report on energy you're giving back to the grid, too.

So how can one hardwired dongle tell you so much? By monitoring your energy use, Neurio knows things like when your laundry is done, or that the stove is still on. It can even tell you when your fridge is running (not a joke this time). Over time, Neurio also tells you which appliances might be soaking up the most energy by providing detailed accounts of your energy use. You might do a lot of laundry, but that's necessary; a new washing machine might be a good idea.

Neurio is open, too, so Developers are free to work with the platform. Though Neurio doesn't currently have partners, the ability to better monitor energy use will come in quite handy for use elsewhere. You might have the ability to remotely engage your thermostat, but if you find it might be cheaper to wait 30 minutes to turn it on, you may want to.

Neurio also doesn't need other devices, so your dumb home becomes immediately smarter. In a time when context is becoming much more important than devices for the 'Internet of Things' and your connected home, Neurio is providing a strong framework to connect you to your home's use. That's a lot better than devices talking to one another.

Neurio is available for preorder now, and costs $249. Shipping will take place in Spring of this year.