“According to a patent granted to Apple on Tuesday, iPhones, iPads and other branded equipment could one day sport onboard smoke detection hardware to alert users, and interested parties, of a potentially dangerous situation,” Mikey Campbell reports for AppleInsider.
“Apple’s U.S. Patent No. 9,123,221 for ‘Wireless device networks with smoke detection capabilities,’ as issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, sounds a lot like similar network-connected products like Nest’s Protect,” Campbell reports. “However, the solution described by Apple offers a number of benefits over today’s fixed location setups, advantages that would make iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and other devices personal, portable fire safety systems.”
“There are no clear plans for Apple to incorporate smoke detection technology into a next-generation iOS device, though the company is becoming a more aggressive player in the home automation space,” Campbell reports. “Perhaps offering a hint as to Apple’s ambitions, today’s patent grant includes claim modifications to an application published last November. Specifically, all major claims now refer to a ‘cellular phone’ rather than an ‘electronic device.'”
Read more, and see Apple’s patent application illustrations and diagrams, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Why waste your money on a smoke alarm company (with recall issues) when you know you can sell hundreds of millions of potential smoke alarms if you so choose?
BTW, if you want a dedicated smoke alarm, a Nest is the last smoke alarm you want. You want a quality HomeKit-compatible smoke alarm, for example:
SEE ALSO:
Apple pulls Google’s Nest thermostat from stores with launch of HomeKit-compatible Ecobee 3 – July 23, 2015
First Apple-certified HomeKit-compliant devices launch – June 2, 2015
Google engineer trashes Tony Fadell’s precious Nest smoke alarm – February 19, 2015
With HomeKit and Honeywell’s Lyric, a Nest acquisition by Apple would have been foolish – June 18, 2014
Will Apple’s Internet of Things vision hurt a beautiful idea? With HomeKit, Apple promises easy home automation – June 6, 2014
Smart thermostat war heats up as Apple-partner Honeywell takes aim at Google’s Nest – June 13, 2014
Honeywell takes dead aim at Google’s Nest with new iPhone-compatible Lyric smart thermostat – June 10, 2014
Google to SEC: We could serve ads on thermostats, refrigerators, car dashboards, and more – May 21, 2014
Dead to me: Apple’s Schiller ‘unfollows’ Tony Fadell and Nest after Google acquisition – January 18, 2014
This is certainly a welcome addition to the Apple Environment.
Now I will know when the video card on any 2006-2009 era iMac has overheated and burned up….!
Thanks Apple, for not wasting time or money fixing any of the other annoying problems with the stuff that made you what you are and instead going for that b’ass ring!!!
I bet they are building a true ‘MacStar’ somewhere in outer-space as we type…
This is excellent news for the iCrowd.
Apple now provides you an emergency warning system for when the iPhones and iPads overheat and blow up in smoke.
Good job Apple.
🙂 🙂 🙂
Preferably, I’d rather it be able to detect Carbon Monoxide.
But yeah, let’s get all the other shit working good first. I still can’t believe they let the current version of Photos out the door. Not even close guys.
Building additional sensors into an iPhone is dependent on it being very compact and drawing minimal power. Detecting smoke could be done optically via the camera, but detecting carbon monoxide is quite different.
I am also curious about how they might keep the iPhone waterproof while allowing smoke inside to be detected. The article suggests that the sensor could be located near the speaker grille, but that involves other compromises.
Having said that, I very much like the idea of having an iPhone that looks after you and can alert emergency services to your precise location if there is a problem.
Nothing like a little Americium in your pocket. Woot!!!
MDN’s bias against Google is pretty thick here. The Nest Protect is clearly far better at detecting smoke than the Ecobee.
Maybe, time will tell. However, as an owner of two Nest thermostats and a DropCam Pro camera, I’m actively looking for similar quality technology to replace them. I really don’t want Google mining my data streams. Unfortunately, the Nest thermostats and DropCam Pro cameras are currently best of breed, and I don’t see replacing them anytime soon.
There’s really no “maybe” about it when it comes to smoke detectors. Nest makes one; Ecobee doesn’t.
As far as the data mining, what exactly are you concerned about, and why didn’t you have this concern before Google purchased Nest?
Don’t let MDN’s (and others) bias and privacy boogieman scare you from using products that you think are better. I have the Nest thermostat and Protect units and love them. I haven’t tried the DropCam yet.
Every company collects consumer data. In the early days, they did it with their Warranty Registration Cards. These days, they don’t need to ask — consumers are cheerfully giving up personal info without second thought.
It isn’t about companies collecting data; it is about how much they have and what they do with it.
Nest before Google only knew where the device was installed and whatever data the sensor captures itself. After Google, Nest thermostat data is added to complete the picture of you that Google is building from your gmail, Google maps history, your physical movements (if you have android), what you buy online, etc. nest data helps learn about some of your life patterns; when you’re at home or not, etc.
And with all that data, Google sells ads for you to the highest bidder. This is the most troublesome part.
When a service is free to the user, then the user is not the customer; he is the product being sold to an actual paying customer (an advertiser).
What’s really frustrating about this argument, is that what Google does couldn’t be any more open. It’s not a mystery at all. Absolutely anyone, as long as they have internet access, can go and see what can be bid on as an advertiser. It’s not only not secret, it inherently only works because it’s an open process. And yet, people make all kinds of wild claims about what Google is doing.
The same could be said about Apple. Apple has iAds. That means, everything you type on a Mac or iPhone can be collected and any advertiser can sell you ads based on anything you’ve ever written or clicked on. Obviously, I’m not serious, but if I were, and if they were, instead of just saying this, I would point and say, “look, here is the URL where you can bid on ads based on exactly what I said”.
“Nest before Google only knew where the device was installed and whatever data the sensor captures itself.”
That’s the only possible data Google is getting from Nest, and even that data is highly unreliable, and not within any parameters for ad bidding. Go on, go and point to where that data can be bid on for advertising.
“After Google, Nest thermostat data is added to complete the picture of you that Google is building from your gmail, Google maps history, your physical movements (if you have android), what you buy online, etc. nest data helps learn about some of your life patterns; when you’re at home or not, etc. “
You’re thinking that the Nest device needs to be registered with a gmail address or for that matter a Google account. It doesn’t. Google may get information about roughly where you live through the Nest, but the data on when you’re home is highly unreliable, as is the data on energy use and temperature preferences. Further, that data can’t be bid on, even if the user did intentionally self-associate it with a Google account. Again, show where it can be bid on, in part or in combination with any other data.
“When a service is free to the user, then the user is not the customer; he is the product being sold to an actual paying customer (an advertiser). ”
Nest isn’t free, and you can’t point to where the customer data is being sold.
If the claims used to say “electronic device” and now say “cellular phone,” that was a significant narrowing of the claims. In patent law, “narrowing” means that the patent doesn’t exclude as much activity by other people (i.e. the patent isn’t as broad in what it “owns”). Normally, a patent applicant wouldn’t _want_ to narrow the claims of the patent, unless that narrowing was necessary for the patent to be considered valid by the patent office. The change seems to be a strong indication that the patent office thought that “electronic device” was too broad of a claim.
What seems strange to me is that, if there were already “electronic devices” implementing this patent, narrowing it to “cellular phone” (which is a type of electronic device) is still not valid.