The First Five Smart Home Appliances From Quirky and GE’s Future-Store

What happens when a Fortune 500-ranked, 120-year-old company like GE partners with a four-year-old startup like Quirky? Today, six months after announcing a partnership, the companies launched their first co-branded products. Advertisement They’re designed to bring a little bit of gee-whiz connectivity to mundane household objects, from your egg tray to your power strip. Each gadget is Wi-Fi enabled, and they run on an iOS and Android app called Wink—designed in-house by Quirky’s growing team of developers. This is the company’s first piece of software, and it’s just a hint of what’s to come, according to CEO Ben Kaufman, who presented the products last week. These fun little gadgets run the gamut from gimmicky to truly useful—in other words, it’s Quirky sticking its toe into the Internet of Things. It also gives me a chance to broach an interesting question about the connected home: Is there such a thing as too connected? As Wi-Fi connectivity makes its way into the nooks and crannies of our lives, will there come a point when we decide we don’t actually need a push notification when we’re running low on toothpaste? Or are ubiquitously-connected objects simply a sign of things to come—a future where… Read full this story

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