This week’s Smart Living roundup features the industry’s first smart coffee maker, a device that acts as the ears of your home, and an alliance for the future of connected cars.

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Connected coffee maker for automated mornings

Belkin International Inc. in collaboration with Jarden Corp. is changing the way people enjoy their fresh cup of coffee with the new Mr. Coffee 10-Cup Smart Optimal Brew Coffeemaker with WeMo. Much like other coffee makers, it has a container for water, the coffee grounds, and the pot the collects the freshly brewed coffee. But unlike any other coffee maker on the market, Mr. Coffee allows you to make a fresh pot while still in bed using the WeMo app.

You can schedule, monitor, and modify your brew anytime, anywhere; adjust brew times depending on your schedule and configure a week’s worth of brew time. Mr. Coffee’s newest heats water to 205 degrees, optimized for flavor. The app is also handy in reminding you to purchase filters, putting back the carafe, or getting notified when a fresh pot of coffee is ready for consumption.

You can now purchase the Mr. Coffee 10-Cup Smart Optimal Brew Coffeemaker with WeMo for $149.99.

Amazon Echo

Amazon.com Inc. recently unveiled a new device that makes it easy to control things in your house with the use of your voice. Called the Amazon Echo, this cylindrical device is always on and listens to the magic word “Alexa” to start following commands such as if you’re looking for weather reports, news, music, recipes, information about people or places, serve as your morning alarm, and a lot more.

It connects via WiFi and is Bluetooth enabled. Echo also has a volume control ring  on the device itself, a woofer and tweeter for clear and crisp sounds, a 7-mic array, action button and mic off button. Echo comes with a remote with a built-in mic, music playback, and volume controls. The device can also be controlled using a smartphone or tablet running Fire OS or Android, with a companion app or desktop and iOS browsers.

New trio rallies for connected car ecosystem

As car manufacturers focus on connecting vehicles to the Internet and with one another, three companies are looking to create a connected car ecosystem to make sense of why vehicles need to be connected to the Internet in the first place.

SAP SE, Volkswagen and Royal Dutch Shell plc are working on a connected car ecosystem to deliver a new experience for drivers starting with a parking space and fuel finding mobile app. At the TechEd & d-code event in Berlin, SAP discussed how the three companies created the Volkswagen Mobility car app which is currently being tested in Hanover. The app is built on top of SAP’s HANA Cloud Platform and uses data from Volkswagen and Shell to locate parking spaces and fuel pumps, as well as use the smartphone to pay for fuel.

“[The partnership] will lay the foundation for a connected vehicle ecosystem, and we’ve taken the first steps to make this a reality,” said René Honig, vice president of portfolio innovation at Shell.

“We truly believe that connected fuelling can improve the customer experience – making it simpler, faster and more fun.”

photo credit: dongga BS via photopin cc