Smart Homes Without the Privacy Risk: Meet Josh.ai
There’s a huge hurdle to jump for a lot of us when it comes to adding some smart automation to our homes: we like our privacy! Google and Amazon have both decked out their smart home offerings in recent years, with assistant speakers, smart thermostats, and control hubs that make everyday life tasks effortless.
Unfortunately, these inexpensive systems have a couple of major caveats. First, they’re owned by huge corporations that profit extensively off the information they glean from user actions. Second, their systems still struggle with basic usability, like natural language processing, making the smart home experience feel more like a chore than an upgrade.
What is Josh.ai?
Josh.ai is a professionally installed smart home system meant to integrate with systems across your residence. It works well with an extensive body of smart home products, smart TVs, and control systems for your garage, yard, and outdoors. The system is designed to be intuitive, natural to use, and operate with the utmost respect for your privacy.
Josh Micro
This room microphone was designed to fit into any space. It features the intelligence of Josh.ai with a capacitive touch dial for volume control. One Josh micro can power an entire home, with its powerful array able to easily hear your voice even from long distances.
Josh Nano
The Josh Nano is the newest device in the series. This tiny microphone sits nearly flush with the wall and features an unintrusive design that will easily meld with any space. The Josh Nano is designed to be placed in each room throughout the home, giving you a seamless smart home experience from the kitchen to your home theatre.
Josh Core
Josh core is the brains of the system. The team at Josh.ai custom-designed this processing unit to locally control all aspects of the smart home without the need to access an information cloud. It is scalable, powerful, and built to protect your sensitive information.
Privacy & Security
In the comfort of your own home, the last thing you want to worry about is your data being compromised. Josh is designed to create a luxurious smart home experience while simultaneously preventing leaks of your private information.
In fact, data processing for your spoken requests to Josh is all done locally—they’re never sent over the internet or to a cloud. If a topic you’re talking about requires even further discretion, the Josh nano even features a privacy switch, which will altogether disable the microphone when activated.
Natural Voice Control
The voice commands in Josh aren’t clunky like other smart home systems. Most smart speakers only respond to highly specific requests, with many questions ending in confusion. Once you say the wake-up phrase to Josh, which is a straightforward “OK Josh,” “OK Home,” or “Hey Micro,” your smart commands can be strung together in natural language.
In fact, the technology in Josh is so advanced and well-tested that even English speakers with a heavy accent have no problem issuing commands.
AI-Powered Improvement
Many smart home systems, and Josh is undoubtedly included in this, offer simple ways to automate your home through scenes or routines. However, where Josh diverges is its ability to learn your preferences and utilize contextual awareness.
As you interact with Josh, the system will learn your preferences for all sorts of things like music, light levels, or how high you prefer your shades drawn at certain times of the day. This information helps Josh more readily answer your requests without requiring a detailed level of specificity.
Josh can understand a complex level of context clues, including types of devices that can be controlled, what room they are in, and aspects of the environment like if it is hot, dark, raining, or if there is music playing.
This context comes into play in several ways. First, Josh can provide suggestions based on your learned preferences and environmental data in the mobile app. For example, the app may suggest you lower the shades in sunny rooms if it is particularly hot outside.
Second, if you a command like, “Josh, dim the lights to 50%” but determine it is too dark, you can later say, “Josh, brighten the room” or “Josh, turn them up,” and the system will understand based on the room you are in and your previous command that you mean the lights.
Intuitive Mobile App
The mobile app for Josh.ai is beautiful, user-friendly, and highly functional. Within the app, you can define scenes, manage devices within any room in your house, and even check on your home while you’re away.
Another great feature is the ability to assign user roles. If you have a house guest, for example, you can set their permissions to certain rooms and devices with ease and easily disable this access once they’re gone.
If you own multiple properties, the Josh app can even manage devices at your other homes and allow you to switch between them easily. This lets you check in on your devices and security systems in different locations easily, even if you’re far away.
Why should I want a smart home?
A smart home setup is more than being able to issue voice commands to turn on the lights. When you integrate a system like Josh.ai into your home, it becomes the brains of your home. Smart home systems can effortlessly create comfortable spaces for you to relax or entertain, manage your utility use while you’re away, and help keep your home both monitored and secure.
Your smart home system should be as unique as your home and well-integrated for a natural experience. If you’re interested in designing a custom automation solution for your home that seamlessly integrates with your home theatre, home security, and other IoT (internet of things) capable devices, let us know! The staff at SCS Home Entertainment are ready to help you design the perfect setup utilizing Josh.ai. Visit our showroom or contact us to get started.