This Monday (10), some products from rock aimed at smart homes were spotted at American retailers. The most curious thing about this is that, so far, the company has not announced any products in this sector. This, therefore, led many to deduce that the company could, at any time, enter the race to compete for space alongside giants such as Amazon and Google.
The “leakage”—if we can call it that—was noticed by the website Zatz Not Funny! based on a post on Reddit.
In the thread, an American user publicly shared a photo of a box containing a Roku smart LED strip (not yet announced). Also according to him, the company’s security cameras and smart lamps were also on display at the retailer.
In addition to this anticipation, import records on behalf of Roku also surfaced on the internet, supporting the interpretation that the company is laying the groundwork for an imminent launch.
In these documentswhich are public, the same products seen in the physical store are expected to go from China to the United States very soon — although there is no exact date for arrival.
In addition to the smart bulbs, cameras and LED strip, records show that a Roku smart socket could also “show up” very soon.
Instead of starting from scratch, however, Roku appears to have teamed up with Wyze, a specialist in low-cost smart products, which is expected to be responsible for manufacturing some of the devices.
O Zatz Not Funny! also found that all smart devices will be able to be controlled in a new app for smartphones and a specific channel in Roku OS, called Smart Home.
For now, there is no concrete information about prices or product launch dates. As they are already in American retail, it is very likely that, there, your ad will not be too far away.
Given that information is still very scarce, we still don’t know if the company is even considering launching them in Brazil.
Devices may support the Matter standard
This entry by Roku into the smart device market does not seem to be for nothing. Last week, version 1.0 of the Matter protocol has finally been made official with the promise to make the products compatible with each other regardless of their brands.
The default is developed and tested since 2019 by a group of more than 200 companies, such as Apple, Google and Samsung, and was founded by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), formerly the Zigbee Alliance.
In practice, Matter brings together diverse technologies to serve as a “universal translator” of smart home products. In this way, gadgets can be controlled by more than one ecosystem or voice assistant.
As it is an “initial release”, as the CSA itself informedthe first version of the standard will not support all types of devices, being initially restricted to TVs, switches, light fixtures, sensors and other smart devices.
Even so, companies that have devices compatible with the protocol can already launch it — and this seems to be the case with Roku, after all, products are expected to arrive with support for Matter.
With information: Zatz Not Funny! and The Verge
https://tecnoblog.net/noticias/2022/10/11/parece-que-a-roku-esta-se-preparando-para-disputar-mercado-de-casa-inteligente/