Finally, A Remote to Control Your Whole House in New Ways

Logitech already controls living rooms across the country, but the company that makes the best universal remote control is taking aim at the entire smart home experience with the new Harmony API that delivers access to over 270,000 home entertainment and automation devices right to wearables, voice control systems and

You don’t need your remote control to change these settings, because the new technology allows devices to connect into the system to trigger changes and respond to voice commands depending on the other items you have in the house.

This makes it possible to say, “Movies” and have an activity lower the lights, switch to the right settings and more. You can also use gestures when you are wearing a wearable device that ties into the Harmony API.

You’ll need the [easyazon_link asin=”B00N3RFC4G” locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”gbm-ea-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”default”]Harmony Home Control[/easyazon_link] or [easyazon_link asin=”B00N3RFCBE” locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”gbm-ea-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”default”]Harmony Ultimate Home[/easyazon_link] to make all of this work, at $129 and $339 respectively.

As a home owner or renter, you won’t need to worry about the Harmony API, but it basically lets other devices talk to a Harmony base station to control your house without the need to be experts in home automation or control. The video above outlines what the Harmony at home service can do, and the new Harmony API will allow new ways to control your home.

Companies like SmartThings, IFTTT, Ivee, Myo Playtabase and the creators of Ubi are already building support for the new API into products that will allow users to trigger home automation events.

Myo is a gesture control armband that will be able to connect to the Harmony Activities based on gestures, allowing you to trigger a smart home control with a wave or a twist of your hand.

This is not the only product that can control the home, with Ubi or Ivee you can control your smart home using your voice to trigger your Logitech Harmony activities. These devices connect into the Harmony controller to make the magic happen so you don’t need to set up smart home controls on multiple devices for different activities.

With connectivity to home entertainment, Nest, Philips Hue and many other areas, the Logitech Harmony vision is to deliver an affordable central command for all of your smart home gadgets.

During our preview of the Logitech Harmony API and connected devices, the company explained that this new option will let companies add home control into their products in a matter of days, by adding the API into their fitness tracker, smart accessories and other items. With an API like this, the company can focus on making the best device they can, without investing resources into becoming an expert of smart homes and home automation.

Many of these companies are already using the Harmony API to add support for voice, gesture and motion controls to turn your home into a smart home with ways to control your connected devices.