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London-based smart home technology startup Den has launched a suite of smart products, including light switches, sockets and more, to manage your home.
The company has also announced its latest funding round of £2m, bringing its total investment to £5 million.
Den’s vision is to use smart home devices to “change the way we control and monitor power usage in homes”. Its first wave of products include smart light switches, smart sockets, motion sensors, smart remotes and Den’s smart home hub.
Den also includes its smart tags for tracking the location of appliances and monitoring appliance power usage – whether laptops or phones from room to room or the location of high-risk appliances like irons and hair-straighteners, Den can track them at all times.
Den claims to be the only firm in the world with the patent for “truly smart switches and plugs that fit seamlessly into the home” – deliberately identical to the plugs and switches the UK is most used to.
“Conventional light switches and socket outlets have been around for more than 100 years and have barely changed – we’re not the first to build wireless switches, they have been available for more than 20 years, however every single wireless switch in the world today has replaced the switch we’re familiar with for buttons or touch pads that are complicated and hard to use,” said Den’s founder and chairman, Yasser Khattak.
“We’re the only company in the world who’ve built wireless switches without taking away the original switch we’re so familiar with. Super excited having released products today. We are looking forward to following up with additional features and products in the coming months and years.”
All devices can be controlled and monitored via a smartphone app, and can integrate with both Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Den’s smart tags allow users to track which appliances are draining the most energy and alert users to safety concerns. In the case of irons and hair straighteners, for example, Den can inform users about what they’ve left running too long, and if not responded to, automatically switch them off.
The latest round of funding will be used in the production of the next range of devices for the home, which will include Den’s smart dimmer switches as well as the entire range with chromed metal finishes.
Funds will also be used to expand operations and the team, to enable further product integrations such as Homekit and explore opportunities with further integrations like IFTTT.
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