Compete Home Automation Becoming Reality With Smartphones, Internet
LU STOUT: Welcome back. Now we have some new pictures coming in to us right here at CNN. Let's bring it up for you. And it shows the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presumably on her way to work. Now it is her first day back since she was sidelined last month by a stomach virus followed by a concussion and a blood clot near her brain. Now Clinton was released Wednesday from a New York hospital. Now let's take a look at this picture. It's a high tech thermostat on display as part of the international Consumer Electronics Show which kicks off in Las Vegas this week. So why are we showing this to you? Well, because it can be powered by your smartphone. As Laurie Segall reports, it's part of a growing trend in app development.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's 10 below.</s>SEGALL (voice-over): Warm up your car with your Smartphone.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you for flying with us.</s>SEGALL: Technology now possible and starting to take off.</s>ZACH SUPALLA, CEO, SPARK: You're starting to see more products connect to the internet. And I think over time, it's starting to create the sort of home of the future where everything talks to each other and things happen automatically like the Jetsons vision.</s>SEGALL: So, what does the home of the future look like?</s>SUPALLA: I've got a button on my phone that I can press and when I press it, right away it's off.</s>SEGALL: Spark is a company building a product that connects items in your home with your Smartphone.</s>SUPALLA: Our first product is the socket and it's a little device that screws in your light bulb socket, it connects to the internet over Wi-Fi and lets you control your lights from Smartphone tablet, computer, wherever.</s>SEGALL: The idea started as a technology built for the founder's father who is deaf.</s>SUPALLA: If I text him and he's at home he doesn't note if his Phone's not in his pocket. And so, I wanted to build something that would let his lights flash when he got a text message.</s>SEGALL: Spark is one of several companies looking to make your home more connected. A company called smart things lets users attach wireless sensors around your house that make everything from your window to your refrigerator Smartphone controlled.</s>DAVID TISCH, INVENTOR, SMARTTHINGS: What they're trying to build a hub in the middle of your home that allows hardware such as your scale, your stove, your door, your dog to talk to it and then software that allows you to be aware of what's going on. And so, it will send notifications, hey, your dog just went outside. Hey, you left your door open. The lights are on.</s>SEGALL: Is it just the technology's smart enough now.</s>TISCH: The platforms have been built. And so, there's connectivity both in your pocket, through Wi-Fi, through 3G and LTE, but there is also connectivity at home.</s>SEGALL: And major industry players are taking note. GE took the concept outside the home experimenting with sensors placing them on everything from wind turbines to measure efficiency to hospital patients to keep track of them in the building.</s>TISCH: You have this controller in your pocket that can enable you to do things that three, five ten years ago were wildly impossible.</s>SEGALL: Laurie Segall, CNN Money, New York.</s>LU STOUT: Something else to lose if you lose your mobile phone. And that is News Stream. World Business Today is next. END