The popularity of Voice control is exploding, but it’s always been surrounded by issues regarding security and privacy.
Josh AI is an artificial intelligence system that offers voice control of your smart home with a focus on privacy.
Privacy
Trust and responsibility help make a house a home. Josh understands the importance of protecting you and your family. We will never sell your data to third parties. Josh is continuously learning more natural commands for the home, and owners have the choice to control how much data their home shares. Josh offers limitless personalization along with unparalleled peace of mind.
Josh AI
The Josh Micro units go in every room in your house and that makes them aware of their location. So commands are simplified – “Close the blinds”, not “Close the blinds in the master bedroom”.
They have context too, asking to “Turn it up” might raise the volume of the music, or make your lights brighter, depending on your previous command.
Integration
The system can control your entire smart home by integrating with a range of hardware including systems from popular names like Crestron (SIMPL & Pyng/Home) Control4, Lutron and Savant.
UK?
So what about markets outside of the USA? We asked Josh AI for their plans for the UK and they told us…
We have some work to do not only on the business end, but technically as well before we’re able to accommodate the European market and the GDPR. Our team is in the process of conducting a number of compliance reviews and we are hopeful that once those are completed later this year we will have greater visibility into a UK timeframe. Although we’re unable to operate outside of North America today, feel free to join our mailing list (at bottom of josh.ai) so that you can stay up to date for when we do become internationally available.
Josh AI
Value
While they do not publish prices, instead working through a dealer network, the company says “the cost of a Josh.ai system is on par with any other entry level home automation system”.
So what’s the value of a private version of something that’s basically free from Google and Amazon? Well it looks pretty high as just last month Josh AI raised $11 million in a Series A round, bringing their total funding to date to $22 million.
It looks like people are prepared to pay for privacy. One to watch.
