Hayo turns your house into a remote control

Home / News / Hayo turns your house into a remote control

Don’t do that, I’ll never be able to find my house again…

Very funny, dad. That’s the whole point of Hayo though – it puts an end to hunting around for remotes. Your coffee table is the Sonos controller. Your bed is the light switch. Think that biscuit tin is just there to hold ginger nuts? Look again – it’s now a power button for your fan. You’ve got to let it all go, Neo – buttons, ‘dumb’ objects, hoarding remotes so you can maintain your TV dictatorship. Free your gadgets.

I would, but you appear to be off your face on kool-aid. Is this actually real?

Not all minds are ready to be freed from remotes, but yes it is. Well, it’s Indiegogo real, anyway. The tech for virtual remotes has actually been around for a while – think Microsoft Kinect, Leap Motion – but Hayo is the first to combine them into one house-controlling hub. Connect the Echo-like cylinder to your Wi-Fi and it’ll scan your room. Then it’s all about using Hayo’s AR app to create virtual ‘buttons’ on any object, or in thin air, and connecting these to your tech. So far Hayo only supports Sonos, Nest, Hue, Amazon Dash and Chromecast, but there’s also IFTTT to help glue it together with other tech. The possibilities are, if not endless, at least weekend-filling.

The possibilities are also annoying when my nephews discover that slapping the coffee table turns my TV on and off…

Yes, that’s why Hayo says you should put virtual controls in places that are difficult to trigger accidentally. Like a side table, rather than your sofa arm. It’s a bit of a shame that Hayo doesn’t support gestures or facial recognition, but these are apparently in the pipeline. And at least you can’t accidentally sit on an invisible remote.

Well, I think I’m at capacity for smart black cylinders with my Echo and Canary anyway…

Nah, black cylinders are the new cushions – you can never have too many. Besides, Hayo complements those two quite nicely. Its sensors make it a nice back-up security gadget, but it doesn’t record images or have a microphone, so won’t get confused when you start talking to Alexa. It even costs about the same, $219, if you back it on Indiegogo. Best tidy up that lounge in preparation.

About

Mark's first review for Stuff was the Nokia N-Gage in 2004. Luckily, his career lasted a little longer than the taco phone, and he's been trying to figure out how gadgets fit back into their boxes ever since. While his 'Extreme Mark Wilson' persona was retired following a Microsoft skydiving incident, this means he can often be spotted in the wilds of South West London testing action cams, drones and smartwatches, and occasionally cursing at them.