2021
March
A truly smart light switch
A solution that makes your light switches truly smart
February
Sustainable Households
Currently almost all Dutch houses, companies, schools, hospitals, and other buildings use natural gas. How can we become less dependent on this finite source of energy and what can Crownstone do to help?
2020
August
Subscriptions done right
Subscriptions have quite a few of advantages, but they have to be done right. Crownstone is offering a smart home subscription and we like to explain a little bit of our thought process behind it.
How would my home react to me?
Lights and devices can be turned on or off depending on your presence. Your presence is determined by pinpointing the position of your smartphone. This smart home function, called indoor localization, is very new! You might have some questions on how this would work out in your home. That's what we will talk about in this post...
Beyond smart lighting
The possibilities in which Crownstone can help you to automate your home are very diverse. Crownstones can be used not only with lights, but also with other electronic devices. It allows you to add useful functions to devices such as fans, TVs, speakers, video game consoles, etc.
July
Integrate Crownstone with Home Assistant
Home assistant is an open-source platform for smart homes. Crownstone is now integrated with Home Assistant so that presence information can be used to trigger all kind of smart home actions with other hardware integrated with Home Assistant.
Insight into the Crownstone App.
When creating our first two scenarios to automate our home, we used the Crownstone app and experienced how simple and straightforward this process can be. Now, we will provide a general overview of the Crowstone app and compare it with other smart home apps, so we can let you know why we are proud of our app.
The magic of Crownstone scenarios.
We sketch two scenarios that use the Crownstone capabilities around sunset and at night. The first scenario uses indoor localization. The second scenario makes your switch smarter at night.
June
Automation: the key ingredient for a truly smart home!
For a truly smart home experience, home automation is needed. Home automation allows your home to do things for you automatically, based on your desires. So why do we need home automation and how is this possible?
May
Bluetooth for proximity detection.
The use of Bluetooth LE for contact tracing is not a panacea. There are a lot of factors that influence the signal strength and with that the distance estimates. Those are factors like phone orientation, multi-path attenuation or fading, obstructions, and many more.
March
Crownstone New Behaviour.
Crownstones behaviour become smarter overnight. Now your house can react even more flexible to your presence of the presence of people in your household. There is a twilight mode that allows you to automatically dim lights when it is night. There is also a new section with abilities that can you enable.
2019
December
Sneak Preview of New Behaviour.
Sneak preview of new behaviour. It can control a light very fast!
September
The Crownstone Built-in One.
The Crownstone Built-in One supports switchcraft, the simultaneous use of an ordinary light switch with the digital control from your smartphone.
May
Firmware and hardware wizardry.
For a noob, the code on a device like Crownstone might look like magic spells; the programmer might look like a wizard including the long hair; the computer like a science-fiction console. However, did you know that as a firmware developer most of the time is spend on debugging!?
March
Privacy matters.
When we enter a hotel room in a new country the small changes that normally get unnoticed suddenly get noticed. Dan Hill cites Timothy Morton: '*the light switch seems a little closer than normal, a little differently placed on the wall*'. Technology should be seamlessly integrated in our environment.
2018
November
Smart Speakers are Changing the Future.
The history from the Echo 4 to the Echo now and what this means for our homes getting smarter right now.
October
Crownstone energy consumption in standby.
The Crownstones use very little power themselves. This means that they can operate as standby killers.
June
iOS advertisements in the background.
Developers have a hard time to cope with iOS advertisements as soon as the app goes into the background mode. However, it is possible to scan for devices, it just requires more in-depth knowledge.
March
Switchcraft and dimming!
We have been testing the dimming behavior extensively and are rolling this out as we speak. Yes, LED dimming as well!
2017
October
The internet of stolen things
A bike of other object can have an iBeacon attached to it. If Crownstones are strategically positioned they can help scanning for these beacons when such an object is stolen.
August
July
June
Thermostats and energy labels fail!
Thermostats and energy labels are not what they should be. A technology that works is zoned heating. In the meantime we got our Bluetooth certification!
May
March
February
January
Deliveries in full swing
Delivering Crownstone plugs! After a very busy time just before and during the holidays we shipped!
