Another gesture would fire up the HDTV and Xbox One while dimming the den lights to play "Call of Duty." And, when you're all set to turn in, yet another gesture would switch off all your home's lights and lock all the doors.
A high-tech wristband called the Reemo, being developed by a Twin Cities startup called Playtabase, would make all of this possible.
The company is one of the newest players in a market often described as the "Internet of Things" -- a wave of innovation intended to make home automation less nerdy and more accessible.
The Internet of Things is new, but already huge.
A prominent local home-automation company called SmartThings recently got snapped up by Samsung after becoming a home-control trendsetter. Google bought out high-tech thermostat and smoke-detector maker Nest, which itself acquired the Dropcam webcam maker not long ago.
All home-electronics and home-improvement retailers now have "smart home" products on prominent display. Richfield-based Best Buy, for instance, recently made a deal with home-control company PEQ to carry that vendor's hardware, and is including it in "connected home" departments it will set up in more than 400 stores by the holidays.
Playtabase, with its home-control wristband, aims to complement and not replace other Internet of Things technologies being installed in homes. The Reemo wristband would add gesture-control capability to make those other products easier to use.
Minneapolis-based Playtabase is initially aiming to make its product compatible with home-automation and home-security technology from Redwood City, Calif.-based Icontrol Networks.
This gives Playtabase a wide reach at the outset because Icontrol's technology is the foundation for home-tech systems from a broad range of well-known providers -- including Comcast and ADT Security Services, as well as small ones such as PEQ.
The Reemo wristband communicates with a central, online-connected hub via Bluetooth Low Energy wireless while interacting with systems from the other home-tech providers largely over the Internet.
The Reemo would be an alternative controller for the home-control and home-security systems from those providers -- and one that would be easier and more fun to use, said Playtabase Chief Executive Al Baker.
"People are looking for that new, cool device they can add to their home automation," he said.
But don't put the Reemo on your Christmas list this year: The device, still in prototype form, won't enter limited distribution until at least early next year, and is not due to be commercially available until later in 2015, Baker said.
Playtabase has about a dozen staffers, the bulk working in Minneapolis, with a couple at the Microsoft Ventures small-business accelerator in suburban Seattle.
The company hasn't been an Internet of Things hit on the order of SmartThings, which burst on the scene several years ago with a hugely successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. Playtabase' own crowdfunding project, on Indiegogo, had less than half of its $50,000 goal on Tuesday, with the campaign due to end Thursday.
Playtabase faces another potential problem: Its wristband looks awfully nerdy, at least in its current form, which might dissuade the style-conscious from wearing the gizmo.
The latest wearable gadgets should be no less attractive than ordinary jewelry, eyewear and the like, said Lucy Dunne, a professor at the University of Minnesota's department of design, housing and apparel, and director of that department's wearable technology lab.
Dunne said she is enraptured by the technology built into such wearable devices as the Google Glass eyewear, but finds the gizmos conflict with her retro-fashion sensibilities, and therefore regards them as largely unwearable.
The same goes for wrist-worn fitness trackers and such, which are getting a lot of buzz but often end up gathering dust in drawers, Dunne said.
Cost could be yet another issue for the Reemo.
With the Reemo expected to retail online for $300 or more, potential purchasers might decide that sum would be better used to buy a shiny, sexy Apple Watch. That Apple product is due out early next year.
©2014 the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.)
