These beautiful devices prove the upside — and downside — of making your home 'smart'

Netatmo

Monitoring your home is both a comforting and frightening proposition. 

On one hand, it's nice to know the most possible information about your home, and feel secure even when you're not there. 

On the other hand, the idea that something in your house is watching you is a little creepy.

I saw both sides of the coin while testing out two Netatmo devices: Welcome, a camera with facial recognition capabilities, and Healthy Home Coach, a smart climate monitor. 

Here's what it was like. 

Let's start with the Healthy Home Coach. This device is about six inches tall and less than two inches wide. It plugs into a wall outlet and is able to monitor climate, humidity, air quality, and noise. The Home Coach costs $99.99.

Netatmo

I've had the Home Coach in my living room on the floor next to my couch for several weeks. It's slim and unobtrusive, so most of the time, I forgot it was there completely. The device only comes in copper, which looks a lot like rose gold in person.

Netatmo

Netatmo favors Apple-like finishes (brushed metal in silver, gold, and copper) and modern designs for all its smart-home products, which includes a smart smoke alarm, an outdoor security camera, security sensors for doors and windows (much like Notion sensors), a weather station, a smart thermostat, and more. 

You'll need to download an app in order to get the information the Home Coach is collecting. You can name your device within the app based on what room it's in — mine is just called "living room" — and watch as the device starts tracking different metrics.

Netatmo

You don't need to be at home for the device to collect information, and you don't need to manually sync your device with your app every time you want an update on the air quality. Once you set up the device and pair it with the app, it's essentially doing all the work for you. 

See the rest of the story at Business Insider