Pavel Jelic We live in the future. This is exactly how you can comment on the current situation regarding technology. What in the past, even a few years back, seemed completely unattainable, we now use on a daily basis. Technology is constantly moving forward and none of us can stop this development. It is only a matter of time when we will no longer need an iPhone or other device to control the entire household. But for now, that is the future for us, which will quite possibly become a reality in the coming years. However, let's live in the current reality and enjoy the possibilities of a smart home, which seem to be absolutely endless.
There is probably no need to introduce the Home application and the HomeKit service in detail. However, if you are hearing about these words for the first time, then briefly and simply: Home is an application on your iPhone, that is, on another Apple device, with which you can control all the smart devices in your home. HomeKit is then a kind of service, one could also say a "property" of products that can be included in a smart home and can therefore be controlled by the Home application. What can we do, despite the fact that there are already all sorts of impossible products for the smart home available on foreign markets, they are not so popular in the Czech Republic - unfortunately, their selection here is small and, above all, expensive.
VOCOlinc decided to tackle this problem. If you're hearing about this company for the first time, don't worry, you're definitely not the only one - I had no idea what to expect either. But when the package arrived at my house - sorry, a huge package - I was thrilled. But about that in the later part of the review. VOCOlinc is therefore a new company in the Czech Republic that has decided to make products with HomeKit support more accessible. And that's mainly due to both the price and the ease of use. So we already know that VOCOlinc products are much cheaper than, for example, renowned products from Phillips, etc. But what will also please you, apart from the prices, is the fact that VOCOlinc products do not need any bridge or other "intermediary" to function, which would communicated with them.
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VOCOlinc products just need to be connected to your home 2,4GHz Wi-Fi network, which acts as a bridge. I have already decided several times whether I should buy a product for a smart home. However, when I found out that it is necessary to purchase a bridge worth several thousand crowns to function correctly, I decided that I would wait a little longer. The time has not yet come when I would say that I cannot live without the conveniences of a smart home. In general, I go to the switch in the evening and turning something on manually doesn't really cause me a problem for now. VOCOlinc products are therefore both cheaper and you save additional money for a bridge that you need in other cases.
At the same time, it is probably clear to you that you can easily control all devices with HomeKit support using your voice or Siri. Whether you have your Apple Watch on your hands or you're near your iPhone, all you have to do is say the magic phrase "Hey Siri!"and tell the voice assistant what you need. I really enjoy this possibility the most when testing products from VOCOlinc. Having never owned any smart home products in the past and these being my first, I was really blown away by the ease of use of the whole thing. And I think you will anyway - until you get used to these options, of course. Want to change the light intensity to 50%? You simply tell Siri. Do you want to turn on the aroma lamp? Again, just tell Siri this request. And this is how it works for countless other cases.
You are probably wondering what I got in the big package that I received from VOCOlinc a few days ago. As for the products that are available in the Czech Republic, I found practically everything that was possible. A smart bulb with an E27 thread, LED strips, a smart socket and the most interesting product for me – a smart aroma lamp. Since this article is only a pilot, we will look at all these products in more detail in separate reviews. For now, however, I can tell you that all the products work perfectly and I don't have a single problem with them. As I mentioned once, I liked the aroma lamp the most, or more precisely, the aroma diffuser. But as I say, I don't want to be too specific to show you everything step by step in a separate review. So you definitely have something to look forward to.
I never thought that one day my room would be scented with a smart aroma lamp. At the same time, I would never have thought that I would be able to simply turn off the light strips by the bed with a single sentence. However, with products from VOCOlinc, all this becomes completely real. Even though these are new technologies, you don't have to worry about them being difficult to control. Everything is as simple as it gets. In the case of VOCOlinc, you still have the certainty that you will save a lot of money when buying smart products compared to other global manufacturers. In my opinion, this is the right step at the moment - to make the smart home more affordable. For the first few days of using VOCOlinc's smart products, I really don't have a single complaint. But you will have to wait a few days for the complete details. However, I assure you again that you have a lot to look forward to.
It's a bit of a shame that a person who has no experience with something like this gets his hands on these things for a review. iPhone-controlled lights and sockets have been around for years (I've been out of warranty for them for a long time), and over time the HomeKit connection, the variety of the offer, the parameters and the price have improved. There are dozens (if not more) of aromalamps like this one on the market, so being a layman about it doesn't add to the value of the review at all. Even though it made the "apple-eaters" the most happy, it seems to me to be the most useless item from the entire offer. It's like a remote-controlled kettle, but I still have to pick it up to fill it with water first.
That's right, this diffuser is the only one compatible with HomeKit.
Somehow it doesn't seem to me that there is a smaller selection of accessories for HK in the Czech Republic (and therefore the entire EU, from which it is not a problem to order anything here) than there is anywhere else.