Will.I.Am buys smart home company in apparent attempt to get into people's houses
The Black Eyed Pea's other ventures include a 'smart cuff' and a car that was turned into a camera
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Your support makes all the difference.Will.I.Am is trying to get into your house.
The Black Eyed Pea has already attempted, mostly unsuccessfully, to get onto people's wrists, around their phones and into their cars. But now he appears to be launching perhaps his most ambitious project: running people's homes.
His company, i.am+, has bought connected home startup Wink. That firm makes an app and a hub that are intended to talk to all the other smart products inside a person's home, unifying them all under one operating system.
The idea behind Wink's products is that people can buy internet-connected devices – like lights or fans – and then have them all talk to the Wink hub.
As such, it is Will.I.Am's first venture into the smart home business. He has already launched a "smart cuff" that was a phone crammed into a wristwatch, a smart car that was really just a Lexus that had cameras attached to to it and a phone case that cost £300.
It's not clear what his company intends to do with Wink, but it said that it would continue to run as normal for now.
An email sent by the team at Wink said that its operations would continue as normal.
"Our teams are in the process of coming together to shape our future roadmap and we can’t wait to share what we’re working on," it read.
"In the meantime, please know that your Wink app and Wink Hub will continue to operate just as they have. The acquisition doesn’t change anything with regards to the Wink user experience."
New updates would be coming to the service soon, it said.
That same email calls i.am+ a "lifestyle technology company", and claims that it has "already shaken up the wearables industry with BUTTONS – premium wireless Bluetooth headphones".
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