We haven't seen weather stations garner the same level of clever mobile integration as other pieces of household gear -- like, say, thermostats. Netatmo wants its newly available Urban Weather Station to inject a similar dose of life into a category that some of us still associate with the thermometer by the window. 

The aluminum tube design certainly gives a fresh look to the WiFi-linked indoor and outdoor sensors, but the real trick is the matching iOS (and eventually Android) app. It's for more than just gauging the wisdom of biking to work: the free app tracks historical trends and shares them with fellow users in a network that Netatmo hopes will provide a better understanding of wider-scale and longer-term trends. 

The sensors go beyond just obvious air quality, humidity, pressure and temperature conditions as well, flagging noise levels and warning if the CO2 levels are high enough to warrant airing out the house. The $179 price for the Urban Weather Station isn't trivial, but neither is knowing just how well you can cope with your environment.

Article by John Fingers

Source: Engadget

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We've long been fascinated by the idea of the house of the future. In 1956, MIT researchers tested plastic homes it'd be a cinch to hose them clean, wouldn't it? while Goodyear researchers worked on air-bubble domiciles a few decades later.

Neither one panned out, of course. But the concept of the "house of the future" wasn't just structural. It also encompassed all of the new technology that would lie inside: video chatting instead of rotary-dial phones, robots to do our housework, and a few buttons we could push to control just about everything.

Alas, our homes still aren't the technological wonders we'd dreamed about. But we certainly have made some advances. Think of amenities like central vacuum, in-home stereo and programmable thermostats. Not sexy enough? Then read about five truly exciting home technologies that are either available now or in development, meaning they all have a real chance of becoming commonplace.

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