Home hubs have always had a major privacy flaw for one reason: they all beam your voice commands back to a central server. This means employees can, technically, go through your voice logs and see all the things you’ve been saying, which has lead to concerns of whether a home hub is a good idea.
There is one way to fix this problem, however. Use edge computing to give the smart hub the processing power to process voices instead. That way, it doesn’t need to “phone home” to figure out what the user said.
Until now you only had two options: purchase a mainstream hub and put your privacy in peril or purchase a custom installation that isn’t kind on the budget. Fortunately, Atmos Home aims to solve this by making a widely-available voice-powered home hub that respects your privacy.
What Is the New Hub Like?
This hub, as we mentioned above, processes voice commands on the unit itself. Hubs, such as the Google Nest and Amazon Echo, may seem smart, but they’re actually very “dumb.” They have to send voice data to a central server to process it and see what it says.
This new one, however, will have the brains to process voices by itself. This means it doesn’t need to upload your voice commands outside of your home. It also means that if your Internet drops out, you can still give commands.
Atmos Home also offers an impressive line of features. This includes no allegiance with one manufacturer brand – it can support as many different devices as possible. It will also contain all the major wireless communication methods used in IoT – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Z-Wave.
Striking the Leader’s Weak Spot
Amazon and Google seem to have a dominant grip on the smart home market, but they both have the same weakness: they don’t fully respect the privacy of their users. Both Amazon Alexa and Google Nest hubs have had privacy issues in the past, with employees of both listening to voice clips for “product improvement reasons.”
A company such as Atmos can make a niche for itself, even with the two business giants dueling one another. It doesn’t need to live “in the shadow” of its larger competition; after all, any privacy-minded individual wouldn’t dream of letting either Google or Amazon into their home. These people will likely be drawn to the first hub that offers supreme privacy options.
Whether Atmos will be the first one to capitalize on this strength is to be seen. Even if Atmos gets a foothold, it’ll be interesting to see if its privacy-oriented stance will be enough to win people over. Will people flock to a safer solution, or will we be so accustomed to hubs monitoring us that we simply won’t care?
A More Homely Hub
The current home hub offerings have some large privacy concerns, to the point some may feel uneasy using them. Atmos is aiming to stop that with the Atmos Home, which promises to only keep your voice clips within the four walls of your home.
If you like the sound of devices that don’t send your data to unknown servers, check out these smart devices that process data locally.
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