Apple HomeKit preview: Is Apple’s smarthome system ready to shine?
After what seems like years of planning, especially in the fast moving world of gadgets, Apple’s solution to getting your smarthome devices talking to each other has finally arrived.
Launching with iOS 10, Apple’s dedicated Home app – which is the interface to HomeKit – will, for the first time, allow you to automate your home with over 100 different compatible devices – ranging from smart connected plugs to window blinds that can be closed by using your voice.
- Apple HomeKit and Home app: What are they and how do they work?
- What works with Apple HomeKit?
- Siri, turn off my lights: Philips Hue with Hue Bridge 2.0 tested
First debuted in 2014 with iOS 8, HomeKit promised to deliver a common protocol alongside secure pairing and the ability to easily control individual or groups of devices throughout the home – including integration with Siri. Two years on and Apple is about to release a dedicated app alongside a big push by third-party manufacturers to get HomeKit truly into homes.
Is HomeKit in 2016 it the smarthome solution to rule all things?
Apple Home review: One app to rule them all
The experience centres around the single Home app. Although HomeKit-compatible devices have been available in some guise for some time, this is the first time Apple has given iPhone and iPad control via its own all-in-one dedicated app.
Pocket-lint
The idea behind the Home app is that rather than devices silo-ed within their own dedicated apps, HomeKit devices are able to talk to each other across a unified secure platform. One app to rule them all and all that.
The app itself is simple, yet powerful. Broken down into three main areas – Rooms, Scenes and Automations – you can quickly access all the HomeKit devices in your house, view them room by room, or create automations based on specific triggers.
The homescreen in Home is like Mission Control in Apple’s Mac-based OS X operating system. Key details are given, favourite scenes listed and favourite accessories accessed. Regardless of whether you have one device or 35, they are all here to be picked at the touch of a button.
The interface is easy to use and a longer press (using Force Touch on the iPhone 6S) allows you to access the selected HokeKit device to make changes – say, brightness if it’s a connected light bulb, or further information if it’s a temperature sensor.
Apple Home review: Rooms and Scenes
The Home screen is fine for those with only a handful of HomeKit devices, but is likely to soon get cluttered if you have more. Realising that, Apple has created Rooms.
Breaking down your HomeKit devices by room makes a lot of sense, allowing you to effectively zone your gadgets into logical groups. A quick swipe to the right in the Home app moves you to the next room you’ve got setup. A nice touch is that you can replace the background image with a photo (say of that specific room) and of course change the name – you don’t have to stay with “Kid Bedroom 3”.
Within Rooms you can also create something called Scenes. These allow you to control different gadgets created by different manufacturers at the same time, but restricted to a single room in your house.
Scenes can be anything from simply saying “Movie Night” to allow you to create the perfect mood for watching a film in your living room, to something more serious like automatically having all the lights in your house turn on and the front door unlock if a HomeKit compatible smoke detector goes off.
Pocket-lint
The winning element here is when you’ve got more than one smart device by more than one manufacturer in a given room. That’s where the system really shines.
With an array of different devices available, or in development and coming to the market soon, you can soon allow yourself to run away with what is and will be possible in the future. It’s no longer the stuff of sci-fi movies. Come September, it will be a reality.
Scenes are easy to create and Apple gives you four default offerings to get you started, including “Good Night” (that could be set to turn everything off) or “I’m Leaving” (which could also be set to do the same as you walk out the door). The real power, though, comes in creating your own custom scenes with your own array of accessories.
Want to make it so when you close the door to the nursey the lights dim and music starts playing? That’s all possible – and really without you having to do anything other than setting up the rules for it to happen. Want to make it so you never come home to a dark house or need your keys if you’ve got your phone? That’s possible too.
It’s sounds corny, but the possibilities really are endless.
Apple Home: Hey Siri, it’s Movie Night
Apple has also layered Siri into the Home mix, allowing you to voice command orders at your iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, or even Apple TV to get your instructions heard. While many third-party products are compatible with separate apps outside of the Apple experience, you’ll only be able to use Home on Apple products.
Each HomeKit device can be referenced separately, as a Room or Scene, with Siri doing very well to understand many of the requests you are likely to throw at it. Say “Good Night”, and that scene would automatically kick in, for example, which is ideal if you are already tucked up in bed. Saying “Good Morning”, could turn on your kitchen lights and start the coffee machine. Nice.
Using Apple TV and you can use its remote, to save getting the iPhone out, and it’s clever enough to understand that saying “Movie Night”, isn’t going to pop-up some random movie, but instead perhaps dim the lights, close the blinds, and maybe turn up the heating so you can snuggle in for the evening. If only there was a HomeKit popcorn maker.
Apple Home review: Automations
Apple also lets you to set Automations based on time, location, sensor (i.e. when it detects something) and accessory (when it is controlled). However, you’ll need remote access via Apple TV or a home-based iPad for these to function – something we’ll cover in more detail below.
Philips
Setting-up Automations means that you can have lights turn on and the curtains close at a set time, or your front door unlock as you approach your house.
Where Automations might struggle is that they aren’t yet able to offer nuances to specific requests, like understanding who’s still in the house, or whether one automation wrongly overrides another – like turning on all the lights when you come home after a session in the pub and everyone else has gone to bed.
At this stage it seems like you will have to make sure your Scenes are setup correctly to avoid awkward moments with other members of your household.
Apple Home review: Connecting away from home with Apple TV and iPad
Apple has concentrated on making the system as secure as possible – and that does have its side affects.
This stringent security system means HomeKit devices will have to be on either the same wireless network or within Bluetooth range to use all the dedicated HomeKit features, like Siri or automations. That’s a potential problem if you aren’t at home, although you might find that you can use a product’s own cloud service instead (which kind of defeats the point, but is there as a backup).
Honeywell
If you want to keep within the Apple Home experience, the obvious and cheapest way of doing this is to install an Apple TV running tvOS 10 – as it can act as a constant connection hub, regardless of where you and your iPhone or iPad are.
You can also opt to use an iPad running iOS 10 too (handy for countries where you can’t get Apple TV), as long as you don’t take it out of the home. Taking it out of the home or turning it off will terminate your HomeKit access, but it does offer another way to get remote access without necessarily having to immediately buy an Apple TV (if you don’t have one). Apple is unsure whether you’ll be able to do the similar trick with a spare or older iPhone, but that might change for release.
Apple Home review: You’ll need HomeKit-enabled devices
If you’ve already got some smarthome devices in your house they won’t automatically work. Some, like Philips Hue, are upgradable by replacing the Hue Bridge, but others like the security camera Canary will have to be completely replaced with the HomeKit-enabled Canary Plus when it eventually comes out.
Whether manufacturers will offer an upgrade path is yet to be seen, but it does punish early adopters.
Then there are other devices that won’t be HomeKit at all. Google-backed Nest hasn’t announced any plans to allow Apple users to integrate the intelligent thermostat into the HomeKit eco-system, for example. That might change if the system takes off, though.
First Impressions
Apple Home is the company’s attempt to unify the smarthome by delivering a single app that works efficiently with HomeKit-enabled devices – without having to dip into multiple apps. That could be, say, automatically turning on the kitchen lights at sunset, or starting up a fan when the temperature in your town gets to a certain level.
You could argue that there are a number of work-arounds for this already though. Many smarthome devices offer their own remote cloud experience, or there’s the IFTTT service (If This Then That) which allows you tap into a number of smarthome devices and have them perform tasks based on actions from other services.
However, different APIs via IFTTT don’t offer the same security protocols as Apple. It’s this point about security which is why you will have to own an Apple TV or at-home iPad hub should you want to use the Home app when away from home.
What Apple Home really gets right is the “one app to rule them all” approach. And it really starts to shine above and beyond dedicated device apps when you pair multiple devices together. It’s at that moment everything snaps into place.
If Apple has its way, it won’t be long before your home is very smart indeed. Now all we need are the HomeKit-enabled devices.
EU Commission: Apple must repay its $14.5b Irish tax break
The European Commission has ruled that Apple was given up to €13 billion ($14.5/£11.1 billion) in an illegal sweetheart tax deal with the Irish government. The amount of money involved here dwarfs the EU antitrust penalties handed out to Google, Microsoft and others, but this is effectively a backdated tax bill, rather than a fine. Officials opened the investigation into Apple’s tax affairs back in 2013 and soon found that the agreement that it had signed with Ireland was illegal.
The Commission says that because the deal gave Apple a “significant advantage” over its competition, the iPhone maker must now be prepared to pay back “illegal state aid” over the ten-year period before it began investigating its tax practices. Officials say that amount totals around €13 billion (from between 2003 and 2014) and that interest must also be accounted for. That could mean an additional €1-2 billion could be bolted onto that figure.
“Member States cannot give tax benefits to selected companies – this is illegal under EU state aid rules. The Commission’s investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years,” says Commissioner Margrethe Vestager. “In fact, this selective treatment allowed Apple to pay an effective corporate tax rate of 1 percent on its European profits in 2003 down to 0.005 percent in 2014.”
Apple and the Irish government will appeal the ruling. The company said the following in a statement:
The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple’s history in Europe, ignore Ireland’s tax laws and upend the international tax system in the process. The Commission’s case is not about how much Apple pays in taxes, it’s about which government collects the money. It will have a profound and harmful effect on investment and job creation in Europe.
Apple follows the law and pays all of the taxes we owe wherever we operate. We will appeal and we are confident the decision will be overturned.
The story began way back in 1991 when Apple signed a deal with the Irish government that enabled it to use a very specific type of tax loophole. This loophole was called a “double Irish” and, very simply, allowed Apple to split profits, paying almost nothing in the process. It’s quite a successful system, and in 2014, Apple was able to stash two-thirds of its global income in this tax haven. While Apple is feeling the effects of the ruling, it was Ireland that arranged the illegal deal.
It’s not just Europe that feels that Apple’s tax affairs were shady, with Senator Carl Levin criticizing the company back in 2013. He wrote a lengthy report (.PDF) saying that Apple had negotiated an effective tax rate of less than two percent in Ireland. In the US, by comparison, it would have been expected to at least pay 15 percent.
But sweetheart deals are in violation with the principles of the free market, which the European Commission has sought to uphold. Countries are barred from offering secret handouts to give local players an unfair advantage over the competition. This is classified as “state aid,” and is illegal in the eyes of the Commission.
In response to the ruling, Apple posted a Customer Letter titled “A Message to the Apple Community in Europe” to its website, in which Apple CEO Tim Cook detailed the company’s investment and growing operations in Ireland. He also took time to comment on the ruling and how it may affect EU businesses doing business in the US:
“In Apple’s case, nearly all of our research and development takes place in California, so the vast majority of our profits are taxed in the United States. European companies doing business in the U.S. are taxed according to the same principle. But the Commission is now calling to retroactively change those rules.”
“Beyond the obvious targeting of Apple, the most profound and harmful effect of this ruling will be on investment and job creation in Europe. Using the Commission’s theory, every company in Ireland and across Europe is suddenly at risk of being subjected to taxes under laws that never existed.”
The US won’t agree with the ruling, given that it feels that any tax Apple owes should go to the treasury. Tim Cook himself has said that he feels that where you “create value is the place where you are taxed.” The implication being that the only place Apple should be on the hook for tax is in the US, even though much of that value is created in Foxconn’s Chinese factories. But, then again, it’s not as if the US currently benefits from Apple’s largesse, either.
The company has been very open about the fact that it has roughly $230 billion stashed in overseas bank accounts that it refuses to repatriate. Cook justifies this by saying that the cost of returning money to the US is too high — shaking out to a tax rate of almost 40 percent, or $92 billion. An investigation over at Forbes revealed that Apple recently hired a Washington lobby firm to push for a corporate tax holiday, even though such a program has been proven not to work.
Daniel Cooper contributed to this report.
Source: Europa
The compact Yuneec Breeze drone is built for 4K selfies
Yuneec is known for high-end drones with features like 4K and collision avoidance, but is going straight for Joe Consumer with its latest model. The Breeze is a $500 compact drone with five flight modes and an on-board 4K camera, making it ideal for types who want high-quality aerial selfies.
Yuneec didn’t reveal many specs, but CEO Tian Yu did say it it includes “Ultra HD and flight mode capabilities of our top end drones.” Judging from the lifestyle pics, one of those is almost certainly a “follow-me” mode so that newbie drone users can focus on posing. As for the camera, if it’s anything like the one on its high-end Typhoon Q500 4K model, it will be decent, though not quite as good as DJI’s built-in 4K cameras.
The Breeze comes with an app to let you control the flight, see a live stream, and take photos or video. Once the it’s over, you can download them to your phone and post to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube Instagram or WhatsApp. It doesn’t appear to break down in any way for easier transport (other than the folding propellers), but certainly looks small enough to throw in a backpack.
The selfie drone market is pretty small right now — Ehang’s GhostDrone 2 Aerial, for one, runs $600 with a 4K camera. Other models, like the Nixie and Hexo+, have yet to ship. That makes the $500 price tag for the Yuneec Breeze look pretty reasonable, and you can actually buy one starting today.
Kim Dotcom will be allowed to stream his extradition appeal
The extradition case for Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom can be streamed on YouTube, a New Zealand court has ruled. The German internet entrepreneur — now living in Auckland, the nation’s largest city — and three of his former colleagues began a six-week hearing earlier this week to appeal a December court decision that allows them to be extradited to the US to face conspiracy, racketeering and money-laundering charges.
Over the past few days, Dotcom and his lawyer Ira Rothken had argued that the hearing should be streamed as it was a “public interest” case. US officials tried to block the request, suggesting that it could reveal sensitive information and influence jurors. However, the New Zealand judge — who had asked for opinions from other media and didn’t receive any objections — approved the petition, making it the first New Zealand court case to be streamed in its entirety when it appears on YouTube on Wednesday.
To appease the court, the video will be broadcast with a 20-minute delay. This will allow any evidence that has been suppressed by the court to be removed. Dotcom’s lawyer is pleased: “It’s very important that the entire world gets to see the courtroom,” says Rothken. “The Internet isn’t run by any one nation, so we thought the solution itself would come from the Internet.”
Before it was seized, Megaupload was one of the web’s most trafficked websites. Officials argue it earned Dotcom and his colleagues over $175 million and cost copyright owners more than $500 million. The defendants believe they can’t be held responsible for the illegal actions of its users, an statement often used by torrent sites, but US officials have relentlessly pursued them in hope of a landmark copyright conviction.
Should Dotcom and his counterparts be found guilty, they could face lengthy prison sentences. But that hasn’t fazed the German: he intends to launch a new version of Megaupload and a new digital currency later this year.
Use the live stream to find and expose US Govt misconduct & lies in my case. I’ll retweet your research & videos. Let’s have some justice!
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) August 30, 2016
Source: Reuters
VMware won’t charge you to run a new OS in Fusion
Virtual machine software is theoretically a one-and-done purchase, but you know that’s not how it works in practice. You typically end up buying an upgrade every year just to get the latest operating system support, whether it’s in the virtual environment or your native OS of choice. You might not have to run on that treadmill this year, though. VMware is releasing free upgrades to Fusion (8.5 and 8.5 Pro) and Workstation (12.5 and 12.5 Pro) that support the latest and greatest platforms. The Linux, Mac and Windows versions of those programs can all run Windows 10 Anniversary Update and Windows Server 2016 in a virtual system, including multiple systems on Linux and Windows. On the Mac, Fusion will also take advantage of macOS Sierra features like Siri voice commands and tabbed windows.
The gesture beats dropping $50 (it’s $80 for a new copy), although it’s not surprising why VMware would give away this update. The focus here is almost exclusively on compatibility, rather than a big revision of VMware’s features — there wouldn’t be a strong incentive to buy a new copy. While it’s too soon to say for sure what will happen with Fusion 9 or Workstation 13, it won’t be surprising if it’s back to business as usual with those versions. Think of this year’s free upgrade more as a temporary reprieve than a fundamental shift in behavior.
Source: VMware
Apple Granted Eurasian Certificates for ‘AirPods’, iPhones, and Apple Watch models
The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEC) has issued new certificates for Apple products that suggest the company is set to release wireless earphones and multiple new versions of Apple Watch alongside the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.
Manufacturers are required to certify electronic devices for sale in countries that are signed up to the EAEC treaty (ratified last year), which includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Armenia. Russian website iPhones.ru found a reference to “AirPods” along with other Apple certificates added to the regulatory body’s digital products registry yesterday.
Last month, MacRumors revealed that an “AirPods” trademark filing discovered last October seemingly confirmed Apple’s work on upcoming wireless earphones in lieu of a headphone jack on the iPhone 7. This latest regulatory certification appears to cement that finding, although whether Apple plans to bundle the AirPods with its new phones or sell them exclusively as a separate accessory is still unclear.
Elsewhere, the documents list several new certificates for Apple Watch (although oddly these are labelled as running watchOS 2, not watchOS 3, as would be expected for new models) and two certificates for products running iOS 10, likely indicating Apple’s upcoming iPhone 7 and 7 Plus expected to be announced in a special event next week.
Apple may use the same event to debut its second-generation Apple Watch, said to include better waterproofing, better battery life, an improved processor, and a built-in GPS chip – but no cellular. Design changes are not expected for the next-generation Apple Watch, but new materials and new bands are always a possibility.
Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 2, watchOS 3, iPhone 7
Tag: AirPods
Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Caution)
Discuss this article in our forums
Apple Must Repay $14.5 Billion in Back Taxes, EU Commission Rules
Apple must repay 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion) in back taxes dating back to 2003-2014, the European Commission has ruled (via BBC).
The Apple tax ruling was confirmed this morning, after the judgement was leaked to the media yesterday. In unequivocal wording, the EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Apple’s tax benefits in Ireland are “illegal”.
“The Commission has concluded that Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13 billion to Apple. This is illegal under EU state aid rules, because it allowed Apple to pay substantially less tax than other businesses. Ireland must now recover the illegal aid.”
Vestiges said this selective treatment allowed Apple to pay an effective corporate tax rate of 1 percent on its European profits in 2003 down to 0.005 percent in 2014. Therefore in 2014 Apple paid 0.005 percent tax on EU profits, which means that “For every million euros in profits, it (Apple) paid just €500 in taxes,” said Vestager. “This is based on an in-depth investigation, it’s based on the facts. I also think and hope that if it goes to the courts that it will be upheld by the European Court.”
According to the EC’s press release, the existing tax rulings endorsed a way to establish the taxable profits for two Irish incorporated companies of the Apple group (Apple Sales International and Apple Operations Europe), which did not correspond to economic reality:
“Almost all sales profits recorded by the two companies were internally attributed to a ‘head office’. The Commission’s assessment showed that these ‘head offices’ existed only on paper and could not have generated such profits. These profits allocated to the ‘head offices” were not subject to tax in any country under specific provisions of the Irish tax law, which are no longer in force.”
Ireland Finance Minister Noonan said the country “disagrees profoundly” with the back tax ruling by the European Commission. “The decision leaves me with no choice but to seek cabinet approval to appeal. This is necessary to defend the integrity of our tax system; to provide tax certainty to business; and to challenge the encroachment of EU state aid rules into the sovereign member state competence of taxation,” he said.
Apple shares fell more than 2 percent in pre-market trading following the ruling, which comes after a three-year investigation into Apple’s tax arrangements in Ireland, where it was initially thought to have paid around 2 percent or less in taxes compared to the country’s headline 12.5 percent corporate tax rate.
Update: Apple has reacted to today’s ruling with the following response:
“The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple’s history in Europe, ignore Ireland’s tax laws and upend the international tax system in the process. The Commission’s case is not about how much Apple pays in taxes, it’s about which government collects the money. It will have a profound and harmful effect on investment and job creation in Europe. Apple follows the law and pays all of the taxes we owe wherever we operate. We will appeal and we are confident the decision will be overturned.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook has also posted “A Message to the Apple Community in Europe” on the Apple website.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Tags: corporate tax, European Commission, Europe, Ireland
Discuss this article in our forums
AEG ComfortLift Dishwasher Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Electrolux
Between easy-to-use wine glass racks, fold-down tines, and third racks for silverware, lots of dishwashers bend over backward to make it easier to load your dishes. Electrolux’s newest innovation will make it easier to unload them.
The ComfortLift technology in Electrolux dishwashers raises the bottom rack to an easy-to-reach height as you pull it out of the tub. You won’t have to bend over to reach your plates and bowls anymore. The rack swings up to about waist height, and you can swing it back down into the dishwasher by pulling the lever beneath the front handle.
Feature-rich dishwashers
- LG LDF7774ST
- GE GDF610PMJES
- Kenmore 13699
Dishwashers with the ComfortLift rack will roll out to various European markets starting this month, as part of the AEG Mastery range of appliances. Electrolux is showing off models with the tech at the IFA trade show in Berlin this week. Unfortunately, there’s no word on pricing yet, and no official plans to bring the technology to the US.
The high-end AEG ComfortLift Dishwashers that’ll first bring the tech to the public also tout lots of other premium perks. Beyond ergonomic loading, the AEG ComfortLift Dishwasher supposedly runs at a whisper quiet 39 dB and offers an energy efficient cycle and an extra-quiet cycle that runs at 37 dB.
Electrolux has been working on the ComfortLift technology for a couple of years, and I’m happy to see tangible dishwasher innovation finally reaching the marketplace. However, the creative features of the Frigidaire FGID2466QF I tested recently got in the way more than they helped. Hopefully, ComfortLift will prove as neat in practice as it is in theory, and Electrolux will roll out the feature worldwide before too long.
AEG SenseCook Oven Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
AEG
Can an oven produce restaurant-quality food, even if the home cook at the helm is lousy? AEG is making a case for that with its SenseCook oven, a built-in wall oven the German brand will introduce at this year’s IFA trade show in Berlin. The SenseCook oven includes control screen that lets you select how you want your food cooked, such as the doneness of a steak or the internal temperature of a casserole, and a temperature probe called the Food Sensor that monitors the progress of your food so you don’t have to.
More IFA 2016 coverage
- Need a phone or a refrigerator? Here’s where you’ll find it
- Fitbit unveils Charge 2, Flex 2, Fitbit Adventures and updates to Blaze
- Philips Hue promises better greens, but you’ll need to buy new lightbulbs
AEG, which is a part of the Electrolux Group of appliance manufacturers, is the latest company to attempt to remove the guesswork from cooking with the addition of temperature probes and smart cook settings. We’ve seen this feature in ovens from high-end brands such as the Dacor DYRP36D and the Jenn-Air Connected Double Wall Oven and no-frills connected temperature probes in mainstream options like the Kenmore 92583. What makes AEG’s SenseCook oven stand out is the Command Wheel. Rather than relying on a touchscreen to control your cook settings, the wheel provides a more solid way to control your oven. This could help folks adjust from traditional ovens with control knobs, and it could be useful when your hands are too greasy from cooking to operate a touchscreen.
There aren’t any concrete plans to bring the SenseCook to the United States, AEG says. The appliance will roll out across Europe beginning in September. The company hasn’t finalized pricing.
Check out CNET’s full coverage of IFA 2016 here.
AE Electrolux 9000 Series washing machine Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
The AEG Electrolux 9000 Series washer softens water for gentler cycles.
Electrolux
Imagine if your laundry appliances could ruthlessly rid dirt from clothes yet be gentle enough to never damage their delicate fabric and fibers. It may sound like an unrealistic dream but AEG Electrolux says its new line of washers and dryers are built to do exactly that. Freshly announced at IFA 2016 in Berlin, the new 9000 Series Washing Machine is especially capable of preserving laundry items.
According to the company this advanced washer actually filters and softens its water supply to clean more efficiently but at extremely low temperatures. The benefit of this approach claim AEG Electrolux is a washing machine which launders without leaching bright colors or deep blacks from your favorite garments even after scores of laundry cycles.
Use the app to choose a cycle
Another clothes-friendly tool in the 9000 Series Washer’s arsenal is the My AEG app, a mobile application which provides specific care advice based on the type of cloth you plan on cleaning. The app also chooses a recommended cycle plus tweaks its individual settings accordingly for optimal performance.
Built into the application as well are general tips and a guide to interpret the often cryptic symbols you see on clothing labels You can download versions of the software for either iOS or Android depending what platform suits your needs best.
Get laundry handling help from the My AEG mobile app.
Electrolux
Along with the 9000 Series, AEG Electrolux also unveiled the 8000 and 7000 Series washing machines though both are less sophisticated and lack water softening technology. In addition neither have the ability to link to the My AEG mobile application.
Better than air
AEG Electrolux pulled the tarp off of a pair of new dryers too designed to pair with their fancy washer siblings. Named the 8000 and 7000 Series Tumble Driers, the most notable is the 8000 series machine. It boasts cycles Electrolux claims safely dries items sown from unforgiving materials such as silk and wool.
An “Outdoor” mode is supposedly as safe as air drying and handles water-resistant, windproof, and breathable sportswear lightly enough to remove moisture but is hot enough to flatten wrinkles. That said the cycle won’t harshly strip away chemical coatings or destroy synthetic fabrics.
AEG Electrolux hasn’t yet disclosed pricing for these appliances nor did it release specific availability beyond sometime in 2017. The company does plan to have its connected laundry app up and running by, “mid-2017.”
AIVAnet 