This week’s Smart Living roundup features a smarter way to manage the connected home, a cloud company acquisition to improve smart homes, and a snazzy way to update your home entertainment system.

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airfy Beacon

If you don’t make it on Kickstarter, Inc., try your luck on Indiegogo Inc., like airfy Beacon did. airfy Beacon is a small device that acts as a GPS tracker in your home. It detects a person’s presence in a room and tells the airfy app what to do with connected devices such as turning on the TV plugged in a connected socket, turning lights off 10 minutes after you leave the room, turning on all the lights when you walk inside your home, and many other customizable actions.

As mentioned earlier, the project first launched on Kickstarter back in July but was not well received by backers. Instead of giving up, it relaunched the project on Indiegogo and has now raised more than its funding goal of $20,000.

airfy Beacon can help households save more energy as actions are automatically performed based on your mere presence or absence in a room. This eliminates the need to program smart home appliances and devices based on schedules and timers, which can be hard to stick to and lack flexibility for anomalies in daily household activities.

Also, airfy Beacon uses two standard AA batteries that could last up to 1.5 years without changing it, which means less energy consumed as no plugging and recharging is needed for the device to work.

Vivint acquires Space Monkey

Home automation and security company Vivint Inc. has acquired Space Monkey Inc., an innovative cloud storage company to support the growth and development of the Vivint Sky smart home platform.

Space Monkey uses peer-to-peer network allowing it to offer greater speed, security, and cost savings for personal storage. Its service will integrate well with the Vivint SkyControl panel that features proprietary cloud technology that learns from homeowners’ behaviors to make intelligent suggestions for controlling connected homes.

New from Bang & Olufsen

If you’re thinking of upgrading your home entertainment system but want to do it with a lot of flare, you might want to consider the two newest products from Bang & Olufsen a/s: the BeoVision Avant and the  BeoLab 20.

The BeoVision Avant is a 4K Ultra High Definition television that features a stunning visual display as well as a robust audio system, and multiple motorized stand options so you can choose which looks best on your living room. It is available in 55 inches and 85 inches.

No 4K tv is complete without the surround sound experience, and Bang & Olufsen has you covered. The BeoLab 20 wireless speaker, which produces musical clarity through its Acoustic Lens that evenly distributes sound throughout the room. The speakers also features built-in Immaculate Wireless Sound into its conical design, which gives homeowners the freedom to place the speakers anywhere in their homes without having to worry about wires ruining the clean  look of one’s abode.

 Image via Bang & Olufsen