Atmos Complete Smart Home Control System

Have people heard of Atmos?

https://www.startengine.com/atmos

What do you think?

Early pre-release.

No patents.
No prototype.
No major backers.
No certifications.
But they’ll be glad to take your money now. :wink:

Production and Regulatory Compliance We face significant barriers as we attempt to produce our product, including regulatory and compliance barriers. We do not yet have a fully-fully functional product prototype, and do not have a final design, a manufacturing facility, or manufacturing processes. We will need to contract with manufacturers with excess capacity to produce some of our components. We must successfully overcome these and potentially other design, manufacturing, and regulatory hurdles to be successful.

Until you can order it for two day delivery from Amazon, it’s all just smoke and mirrors.

I’ll wait to evaluate until it’s actually shipping, but I’m not optimistic.

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Hmmm… wasn’t this tried before? :sunglasses:

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LOL – I think “atmos” has been used in a zillion projects…this is Atmos Home!

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I think you know I trust your opinion quite a bit. IMHO, I think their concept is well positioned. Personally, I think the cell phone is a fraught “hub” for IoT integration. Where is my phone? Log-in delay? Death by Icon. I like the concept of dedicated hubs for home automation. For instance, I used an iPad with an iPort for a dedicated SONOS dashboard in my kitchen – so much better than relying on the phone for controlling music.

So I am very much FOR Atmos, conceptually. Will be interested to see where it goes!

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I’m unimpressed and concerned with their equity crowd-funding campaign. I think it releases a total of around $250,000 for 11% of the company.

They have a lot of staff and challenges and that trivial amount of money will be burnt up in no time. The traditional angel or venture investors won’t be impressed and unlikely to throw in more.

SmartThings had a substantially successful Kickstarter (over $1 million) and that was followed by several $ million in venture capital. And it still took a long time to be retail ready…


There are dozens of smart home platform startups at various stages right now. Atmos is one of the weakest ones, especially compared to Brilliant (funded at over $20 million so far).

Success is much more dependent on funding than technology and innovation.

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That’s why we created the increasingly successful ActionTiles for SmartThings!

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Have been waiting on Brilliant…forever! I do think there is conceptual value in an overarching control platform. Seems likely to me these entities will be bought out and converge, but what do I know?

My other naive observation is that for all the time that has been invested in some of this tech, how buggy much of it remains. I JUST bought a Smartthings motion sensor, and it works extremely poorly, compared to a Lutron motion-sensing wall switch (not cloud-based, I realize), which works perfectly. So it seems the IoT has a ways to go, and a lot more integration and compatibility is needed.

I will check out ActionTiles!

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ActionTiles is justifiably very popular, as long as you’re using SmartThings it’s definitely something to consider.

As far as atmos, they have never answered how they’re going to have a locally operating voice recognition system. So far everybody who has tried one for home automation has failed in the low-cost range, and even the very expensive Systems tend to end up having to use something like Dragon, where the user needs to either wear a microphone or be within about 5 inches of the speaker or use their mobile phone.

The big breakthrough with Amazon’s echo was the far field speech recognition which is honestly just amazing. The hardware Innovation with multiple patents on it. And then they, like Siri and hey Google, use the cloud for the software piece because voice recognition is just hugely complex and needs massive data bases.

So as a concept, like something you’d see in the Jetsons cartoon, absolutely, atmos looks great. But as an engineering proposal, I’m not seeing anything that would bring that concept to reality. I’m definitely happy to be proven wrong, but I’m going to wait until they actually prove it. :wink:

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Well… That’s just one piece of hardware (probably an unanticipated poor choice of design or manufacturer) and doesn’t represent the entire platform.

And keep in mind that Lutron have been experts at lighting and lighting automation for a lot longer than SmartThings! I’d say they are larger too; not counting Samsung.

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Lutron has excellent engineering for both Networked and nonnetworked devices, but all they do is lighting. (And, by the way, tons of patents – – they’re the ones who invented the digital dimmer.)

Lots of complaints about the most recent generation of the SmartThings – branded motion sensor. I have no idea why: the second generation was a nice device, as was the first. But the third went downhill a bit and the fourth just seems to be off the rails. It could be something else going on, but it’s been something of a disappointment.

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Thanks - I read that about the sensor…after I bought it! I just replaced it with Aeotec Multi 6, which has worked well for me in the past!

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DISCLAIMER: I am definitely not recommending purchase of this product until it actually “EXISTS” and has been professionally reviewed and consumer tested.

But…

  1. It’s now pre-order for “Sprint 2019” delivery (:roll_eyes: :laughing: :crazy_face:) at $299/unit (that’s $50 more than originally announced: https://www.zdnet.com/article/smart-homes-biggest-problem-has-two-man-startup-atmos-solved-it/) https://atmoshome.mybigcommerce.com/atmoscontrol-plus/

  2. Besides a general summary, there are NO published hardware specifications. How is the unit powered for example? Looks great on walls in the renderings, right? But no POE? Customer is expected to mount it above a power outlet and run a low voltage drop behind the drywall… I guess that works for Amazon Fire HD8 tablets. … Ooo… “quad core processor”! http://atmoshome.tech/design.html

  3. What a joke. The have $1 million in seed funding. About enough money to make more pretty pictures. https://www.iot-now.com/2018/12/12/91165-atmos-home-announces-seed-us1mn-funding-launches-intelligent-smart-home-control-system-ces/

From the FAQs
We provide everything you’ll need, aside from any basic tools, like a screwdriver and hammer, or hand drill. We’ll include special drywall screws to minimize the hole size and dust, optional wall anchors, wire, AC adapter, mounting guide, and step-by-step instructions. You’ll mark the mounting holes for screws, drill 2 small holes and run the wire from the unit to the outlet, plug the AD adapter into the outlet, then connect both ends of the wire and mount the unit to the wall.

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Atmos Control will begin shipping preorders in Q2 of 2019 with a retail rollout after that.

7" screen? I guess that’s more compelling than the 5" diagonal screen size of Brilliant.tech.

Well: Anyone want to make a wager that the preorders actually don’t ship until at earliest Q4 2019? Someone else can make book for Q3 … or 2020 and beyond…

(I hate how CNET (and other gadget media) writes in the present tense about a device that only exists in the future tense.)

Though… I’m impressed that Atmos put their $1 million in funding to use to make a demo that actually could be video recorded “live” at CES:

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Finally a decent looking UI. Someone had to step up eventually.

You’ve been able to buy the following for almost 2 years:

https://www.amazon.com/Zipato-ZT-ZWUSZBEE-ZipaTile-Automation-Controller/dp/B01LZYA4VV

It is gorgeous (I’ve seen one in person). But like many cloud-based systems, it’s just not stable. :disappointed_relieved:

Will see if Atmos can do better.

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Guess I missed that one :slight_smile:.

Yep, hopefully Atmos does better.

Yes … Hopefully they will. But I advise against pre-ordering / pre-paying and let other guinea pig consumers actually experience it in the real world first.

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