Wyze $20 smartwatch — no more excuses
Wyze, the company that continues to pump out well designed and amazingly affordable smart home products, including cameras, thermostats and smart locks, has done it again. This offering, a $20 smartwatch with nine days of battery life, is compatible with Apple Health and Google Fit. The device also includes heart monitoring and sleep tracking features. TheVerge
dis-rup-shun: If you have resisted the allure, so far, of an Apple Watch, just not certain if it will be all that exciting, then your excuses have been eliminated. For $20 you can determine if a smartwatch is interesting to you and you can control your Wyze smart home products, like thermostats and cameras, from your wrist. Then you can decide if Apple’s value adds are worth the upgrade. Happy holidays.
HP Enterprise joins Silicon Valley exodus
HPE, the non-consumer spin-off of the company formerly known as Hewlett Packard, announced that it is moving its headquarters from San Jose to Houston. CNBC
dis-rup-shun: You have to admit, the first reaction is that the company should move into the Compaq campus in north Houston — a sprawling office complex that has not been the same since HP swallowed Compaq in a bold move that resulted in both companies becoming laggards of the commodity PC business and Carly Fiorina losing the CEO job. That merger was a bust, and to see HPE go back to Houston makes it seem like life is moving in circles. Hey California, are you pleased that giant tech companies are packing up and moving to Houston, Austin and Dallas in droves? Aren’t tech companies the cleanest businesses and solid tax bases? Should you do something to keep companies in your beautiful but pricey state?
Salesforce needs some Slack
Salesforce has stated its intention to acquire Slack, the group messaging platform that now lives in the shadow of Microsoft Teams, for $27.7 billion. TheVerge
dis-rup-shun: Slack, founded by a founder of Flickr, has moved from an edgy tool for start-ups to an enterprise grade groupware app, especially important during the pandemic. Despite its success, Microsoft Teams — included in with the cost of the Office Suite — along with similar offerings from Facebook and others, offers a serious threat to Slack’s growth. Slack, however, benefits from a loyal following and from some awkward features in Teams. Salesforce, having risen to a cloud software giant, is anxious to spur growth by adding features — at the peril of becoming so large and complex that small businesses will choose more nimble applications. Salesforce is a godsend for Slack as the competition is getting fierce for the groupware company.
AWS Panorama turns IP cameras into computer vision
Amazon Web Services, ever seeking to add value to the cloud, has announced a product called Panorama which makes any IP camera really smart. Panorama enables the video feed from a standard IP camera to become an intelligent device — recognizing problems with machines, with products on an assembly line, or perhaps spotting workplace safety issues. TechCrunch
dis-rup-shun: If this really works, it has endless applications. Taking the discussion back to consumer IoT, imagine what a Ring (owned by Amazon) doorbell could do if it was smart enough to tell you who was at the door, or why a strange car parked on the street is a concern, or that front hedge was looking quite dry.