CastleOS has announced that its upcoming smart home hub will be powered by Windows 10, making it the first Windows 10 hub on the market. While certainly not cheap, the soon-to-be-released hub’s expansive protocol support certainly makes it an attractive proposition for smart home adopters, and with Windows 10’s AllJoyn support, the CastleHUB looks like one of the most comprehensive hubs you could buy today.
At $500, or $430 if you preorder, the fetching obsidian spheroid is a much more expensive option than something like a Wink, Staples Connect or Amazon’s voice-controlled Echo. However, its hardware specification is much more impressive, sporting: an Intel Celeron 2957U (typically found in laptops), 2GB of RAM, a 30GB SSD, 802.11ac WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth 4.0, a 4-in-1 card reader, 4 USB 3.0 ports and 3 USB 2.0 ports, as well as HDMI and DisplayPort outputs. Upgradeable to 16GB of RAM, combined with an empty 2.5-inch HDD slot, the hub could become a dedicated home media server on top of its smart home credentials.
This hardware should enable the hub to do a lot of heavy lifting, which will be especially important in smart homes that will be handling multiple video streams and cloud-backups. But the more impressive list is not of its electronics, but rather the protocols it aims to support.
CastleOS says its hub ships with “fully integrated support*” for Z-Wave, Universal Powerline Bus (UPB), Belkin’s WeMo, Works With Nest, X10, Philips’ Hue, Sonos, TCP, Ecobee, Lightwave RF and Insteon. The asterisk denotes that an adapter may be needed for these protocols, as it only supports WiFi and Bluetooth out of the box – but that’s what all those USB ports are for. If the hub ends up with multiple other hubs hanging from it, it would somewhat spoil the sleek aesthetic, as well as adding to the total cost of the smart home platform.
In addition, the company plans on adding support for ZigBee, Lutron, RadioRA2, GE’s Link, KNX, ELK, Wink, Chamberlain, Somfy and Universal Devices. On top of that, an API is provided so that other devices and protocols can be adapted to work with the CastleHub, based on C# and supported via user forums for customized tweaking. Notably, there’s no mention of Apple’s HomeKit in the documentation, but given that ecosystem’s apparent support of only WiFi and Bluetooth, that integration could be just a simple OTA update.
The main draw of this platform, aside from its expansive potential protocol support, is the addition of Cortana to provide natural language voice control. In theory, this will allow users to issue commands and ask questions of their smart homes, with the hub handling the computational requirements of querying and controlling the appropriate connected devices in the home. Voice control is absolutely central to a convincing smart home platform, and leveraging Microsoft’s Cortana looks like a very savvy business decision.
As well as the hub, CastleOS is providing the smartphone app to coordinate the devices, with support for iOS, Android, Windows and BlackBerry. What’s significant about this app is that its feed is taken directly from the hub, and not via a cloud server – which should make its response times notably faster than having to relay commands from the cloud down to the phone and then back to the hub.
To this end, a key selling point of the hub is CastleOS’ assurance that it takes user data very seriously, and has consequently avoided the cloud – so that in-home commands don’t leave the home to remote servers, and so a DDoS attack can’t knock a smart home offline (unless you kill the home router, realistically, although it should still tick over without an internet connection.) Going as far to say that its cloud-based competitors risk customer privacy, this is likely going to be a strong selling point for privacy-conscious consumers – of which there are a growing number.
The hub’s HDMI port betrays the fact that CastleOS plans on users pairing the unit with a TV – and to that end, the company has added OTT video applications for users to watch video content through, including Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and Hulu. In addition, CastleHub will support an internal or external HDD for media files, and also supports popular media servers Plex and XBMC.
It will be interesting to see if CastleOS sticks with its direct to consumer model, or if it can win operators over to its rather comprehensive platform. As a piece of CPE, this would make a powerful IPTV set top, but unless deals are struck, its upfront cost may prove a barrier to that distribution model – which we think is one of the most compelling ways to increase smart home adoption.
Microsoft confirms Windows 10 on Xbox, with AllJoyn potential:
Last week we discussed how Microsoft would be able to leverage its Xbox to push an AllJoyn-based smart home ecosystem, with the console acting as a hub via the AllJoyn stack found in Windows 10. This week, Microsoft has confirmed that it will be releasing the preview edition of its new OS for the console in September, aiming for a November launch.
For most console users, the changes will be aesthetic, with the addition of the Cortana voice-controlled AI being the most prominent non-cosmetic change – which will allow gamers to issue commands for recording gameplay or inviting friends to join them in-game, as well as controlling central functions of the apps used on the Xbox.
But that voice control could be paired with smart home devices like lighting and HVAC systems to allow a player to control their home, with the TV serving as a central screen. Designs from companies such as EchoStar’s Sage pushing the video feed from doorbells to the TV viewer, so that a guest can be screened before a door is approached, or simply let in via a connected door lock.
Whether Microsoft decides to push the console as a smart home hub remains to be seen, but it is certainly laying the groundwork for all Windows 10 devices, which now includes the Xbox, to act as coordinating hubs within the smart home. The main benefit for current owners of such devices would be not having to purchase additional hub hardware, with the tradeoff of leaving the console or PC powered on at all times.