Nest Smart Home Electronics: An Easy Guide to the Best Features


Book Description

Nest electronics was a producer of automated home electronics that have the ability to learn and are operated by sensor and Wi-Fi connection. The first product ever made by the company was a Nest Learning Thermostat that they developed in 2011. The company was founded in 2010 by Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers who were both former engineers at Apple. The company has grown tremendously since its start moving from 130 employees to 1, 100 and is highly praised for its smart home devices.




The Simple Guide to Home Electronics, 2017


Book Description

The Simple Guide to Home Electronics helps the average person​ navigate the bewildering array of choices in the ever-changing world of home electronics that impact our day to day lives. A wide variety of topics from lightbulbs to the Internet, TV, Telephone, Cameras, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are explained without all the tech savvy jargon. Each chapter begins with a general overview and practical advice followed by more in-depth information that will give you an understanding of the type of products available and how they work. If you have ever considered disconnecting your cable TV, a smart thermostat or turning on the lights with a voice activated product, then this book is for you. The author's light conversational style along with his own engaging stories, humor and points of view make these complex topics easy to understand. The information is presented in free-standing independent chapters that can referenced over and over again as you replace and update the technology in your home.




The Best Interface Is No Interface


Book Description

Our love affair with the digital interface is out of control. We’ve embraced it in the boardroom, the bedroom, and the bathroom. Screens have taken over our lives. Most people spend over eight hours a day staring at a screen, and some “technological innovators” are hoping to grab even more of your eyeball time. You have screens in your pocket, in your car, on your appliances, and maybe even on your face. Average smartphone users check their phones 150 times a day, responding to the addictive buzz of Facebook or emails or Twitter. Are you sick? There’s an app for that! Need to pray? There’s an app for that! Dead? Well, there’s an app for that, too! And most apps are intentionally addictive distractions that end up taking our attention away from things like family, friends, sleep, and oncoming traffic. There’s a better way. In this book, innovator Golden Krishna challenges our world of nagging, screen-based bondage, and shows how we can build a technologically advanced world without digital interfaces. In his insightful, raw, and often hilarious criticism, Golden reveals fascinating ways to think beyond screens using three principles that lead to more meaningful innovation. Whether you’re working in technology, or just wary of a gadget-filled future, you’ll be enlighted and entertained while discovering that the best interface is no interface.




Google Home


Book Description

This book is a guide on how to use Google Home. It begins by guiding you on how to setup your Google Home device, including connecting it to the Google Home app before using it. The book then guides you on the basics of using the device, such as turning it on, rebooting the device, and muting it, as well as how to adjust the volume. Google Home can be used for playing TV movies and shows. This book guides you on how to do this. It is also possible for you to connect your Google Home to external speakers and then play your audio in the speakers. This book provides you with a guide on how to set this up. With Google Home, you can control the lighting system of your house by the use of voice commands only. You will learn how to this by the use of Philips Hue lights. Google Home can also help you to control the temperature of your house via a Nest thermostat. This is discussed in detail in this book. Google Home can also be connected to the various WeMo devices such as the WeMo switches. This book explains how to do this. You will also learn the best tips and tricks when using Google Home, as well as some of the funny questions you can ask the device. The following topics are discussed: -Getting Started with Google Home -How to Use Google Home -Playing TV Movies and Shows with Google Home -Playing Audio on Speakers -Smart Lights with Google Home -Google Home and Thermostat -Google Home and WeMo -Tips and Tricks




The Age of Surveillance Capitalism


Book Description

The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior. In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth. Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification." The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit -- at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future. With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future -- if we let it.




My Smart Home for Seniors


Book Description

Winner, Bronze Award, APEX 2018 and 2018 INDIES Book of the Year Honorable Mention/Health This full-color introduction to the smart home has been written from the ground up with one audience in mind: seniors. No ordinary "beginner's book," My Smart Home for Seniors approaches every topic from a 50+ person's point of view, using meaningful, realistic examples. Full-color, step-by-step tasks–in legible print–walk you through making your home safer and easier to live in using smart technology. Learn how to: • Control your home’s lighting with smart bulbs and switches • Make your home more secure with smart doorbells, door locks, and security cameras • Automatically control your home’s temperature with a smart thermostat • Make cooking and cleaning easier with smart appliances • Use voice commands or your smart phone to control your smart devices • Use If This Then That (IFTTT) to make your smart devices interact with each other automatically • Get smart about the security and privacy concerns of smart devices • Set up your smart devices and get them to work with one another • Compare and select the best smart hub for your smart home needs • Learn to use Amazon AlexaTM, Google HomeTM and other voice-activated devices, as well as Apple’s HomeKitTM on the iPhone, to make your smart devices work together




Smart Home Systems


Book Description

Smart homes are intelligent environments that interact dynamically and respond readily in an adaptive manner to the needs of the occupants and changes in the ambient conditions. The realization of systems that support the smart homes concept requires integration of technologies from different fields. Among the challenges that the designers face is to make all the components of the system interact in a seamless, reliable and secure manner. Another major challenge is to design the smart home in a way that takes into account the way humans live and interact. This later aspect requires input from the humanities and social sciences fields. The need for input from diverse fields of knowledge reflects the multidisciplinary nature of the research and development effort required to realize smart homes that are acceptable to the general public. The applications that can be supported by a smart home are very wide and their degree of sophistication depends on the underlying technology used. Some of the application areas include monitoring and control of appliances, security, telemedicine, entertainment, location based services, care for children and the elderly... etc. This book consists of eleven chapters that cover various aspects of smart home systems.




Home Automation For Dummies


Book Description

Ready to control you house with your smartphone or tablet? Spivey shows you how to control thermostats, home security systems, and much more! Best of all, with these plain-English instructions, you can do it yourself!




Google Home


Book Description

Are You Ready To Amaze Your Friends With Google Home? Do You Want To Know What Google Home Is Capable Of?Yes! You don't have to be an expert on technology-based devices in order to control Google Home!Google Home is Google's answer to Amazon Alexa. It lets you do pretty much the same things that you can do with your Android's voice assistant, but without pulling out your phone to use it. It is primarily a Wi-Fi speaker but it does a whole lot more. In "Google Home: The Google Home Guide and Google Home Manual with Setup, Features, and Tips", you will discover proven steps and strategies on how to set up and use Google Home, the latest feature product from the search engine giants!Stretch your imagination and see just how far you can go with Google Home!This Google Home user guide will give you the unique approach to the following information: Basic Google Home Setup & App Settings Google Home Features Listening to Shows and Podcasts Linking Speakers and TVs Through Multi-Room and Group Playback Controlling Your Home with Google Home Managing Alarms, Timers, and Lists Getting Information, Answers, and More Google Home and Your Privacy and many more!Whether you are looking to listen to music, share documents with others, get your calendar filled up, or find a way to improve your workouts or run your smart home, this Google Home user manual is there to help you out.Learn To Work With Google Home In A Day! No Prior Knowledge of Technical Subjects Is Necessary!Don't wait even for a second longer! Download "Google Home: The Google Home Guide and Google Home Manual with Setup, Features, and Tips" right away and begin issuing voice commands completely hands-free!




Build


Book Description

**New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USAToday Bestseller** Tony Fadell led the teams that created the iPod, iPhone and Nest Learning Thermostat and learned enough in 30+ years in Silicon Valley about leadership, design, startups, Apple, Google, decision-making, mentorship, devastating failure and unbelievable success to fill an encyclopedia. So that’s what this book is. An advice encyclopedia. A mentor in a box. Written for anyone who wants to grow at work—from young grads navigating their first jobs to CEOs deciding whether to sell their company—Build is full of personal stories, practical advice and fascinating insights into some of the most impactful products and people of the 20th century. Each quick 5-20 page entry builds on the previous one, charting Tony’s personal journey from a product designer to a leader, from a startup founder to an executive to a mentor. Tony uses examples that are instantly captivating, like the process of building the very first iPod and iPhone. Every chapter is designed to help readers with a problem they’re facing right now—how to get funding for their startup, whether to quit their job or not, or just how to deal with the jerk in the next cubicle. Tony forged his path to success alongside mentors like Steve Jobs and Bill Campbell, icons of Silicon Valley who succeeded time and time again. But Tony doesn’t follow the Silicon Valley credo that you have to reinvent everything from scratch to make something great. His advice is unorthodox because it’s old school. Because Tony’s learned that human nature doesn’t change. You don’t have to reinvent how you lead and manage—just what you make. And Tony’s ready to help everyone make things worth making.