Ryan was impressed with Google's Nest Learning Digital Thermometre and recommended it a few years back as a great holiday gift, which is still true to this day.  A company called Ring is making inroads into the smart home market with their self titled second generation product.  Their original product was Doorbot, which some hated and many liked but which is nowhere near as interesting as the new Ring.  It is a 720p camera, with a motion sensor, microphone and speaker all powered by the small current provided by your existing doorbell circuits and a battery backup good for about a year.  It connects to your house and the Cloud via WiFi and is capable of not only ringing on your iOS7+ or Android 4.0+ phone but also to send the video so you can interact with whoever is at your front door even when you are away.  You may not be able to sign for packages remotely but barring that this can be very handy.  Read more at The Register.

"Ring is enjoying that classic moment in a company's lifecycle when word has started getting out and orders are coming in at a rate that requires scaling up to the next level. And for good reason too. By all accounts, Ring the video doorbell is an impressive product, successfully navigating the path between hardware, software, smart phones and cloud services to deliver a genuinely innovative product with a real use-case."

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