Eve Systems’ CES focus is on HomeKit, Matter, and Thread

Eve Systems made some early CES product announcements today, revealing its first outdoor security camera, plus a motor for smart window shades fabricated by the Dutch window-coverings manufacturer Coulisse. Both products reflect Eve’s focus on Apple’s HomeKit smart home platform, Thread mesh-networking technology, and the Matter smart home standard backed by Amazon, Apple, and Google.

The Eve Outdoor Cam is actually a floodlight/security camera combo, and it looks very similar to the Netatmo Smart Outdoor Camera. Expected to be available April 5, the $250 camera combines a 1080p outdoor security camera with a 157-degree field of view and infrared night vision with an LED floodlight. The camera has a 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi adapter onboard, with an integrated microphone and speaker to enable two-way communication.

When motion is detected, the camera records video at 24 frames per second, encoding it as an h.264 file. The camera then uses an Apple TV or HomePod device on your network to process that video, determining if the motion was caused by a person, animal, or vehicle, and if a package has been left in its field of view. The video is then encrypted and stored in the user’s iCloud account, using Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video. As such, you’ll need to be firmly in Apple’s ecosystem—with an iPhone, iPad, or a Macintosh computer, plus an iCloud+ subscription—to use it.

Eve Systems

Eve collaborated with the window-coverings manufacturer Coulisse to build its first smart shade motor and its 10^th Thread-enabled, HomeKit-compatible smart-home product. Eve MotionBlinds will also support the Matter standard. The battery-powered motor, which can be recharged with a USB-C cable and power supply, will initially be available in custom roller shades. The motor can be controlled with an iPhone or iPad.

Add a HomePod or Apple TV as a home hub, and you’ll be able to control the shades from other HomeKit-compatible devices as well as from anywhere you have broadband access. Unlike most other types of smart shades, there is no dependence on connectivity to the cloud, and Eve says you’ll be able to manually control the shade with “just a simple pull.”