The ‘Star Trek’ Home, Ep 1: Nucleus Anywhere Intercom

Lately, advancements in smart home tech have been boiled down to apps, automation and voice recognition, i.e. scheduling a smart gadget to automatically turn on or off at certain times of the day, controlling a gadget using voice commands, or remotely from a mobile app.

Now… imagine being able to communicate from different rooms within the house with the push of a button… a la the bridge in Star Trek and the house being the Enterprise Starship…

Ensign: The Admiral’s ship is hailing us, Sir.
Captain Picard: On-screen.

All Star Trek geekdom aside, I stumbled upon the Nucleus Anywhere Intercom whilst reading up on smart homes and shiny new smart home gadgets.

Homes have been installed with intercoms for decades but unlike the traditional intercoms that only transmit audio and allow people to communicate only within the same house,  the Nucleus allows users to communicate…

Room to Room within the same home

Home to Home across the country or even across the globe

Mobile to Home by connecting to Nucleus devices from their mobile phones via the Nucleus Mobile Companion app that is available on the App Store and Google Play

 

 

Nucleus Technical Specifications

Color: Black/White

Dimensions (H x W x D): 8.1 x 6.9 x 10 inches

Weight: 1 pound

Features: 800-pixel touch screen, stereo speakers, microphone,  5MP camera with 120-degree FOV

Power source: DC adapter or Power over Ethernet (PoE)

Network connectivity: Ethernet, WiFi, or PoE

Installation: Mounted on a wall or set up on a desk or counter top

 

Nucleus Features

The Nucleus is said to be “designed for everyone”, which means it was built with non-tech savvy people in mind. It has a non-complicated and very user-friendly interface. Users need to just follow onscreen instructions on the Nucleus and the Nucleus app, making setting up a breeze.

Instant mode calls another Nucleus and gets video feed without waiting for someone to pick up. This mode is perfect for making a quick announcement.

 

Privacy mode calls have to be manually answered.

Do Not Disturb mode prevents others to call that Nucleus but that Nucleus is able to call out.

Broadcast All allows the user to send an audio message to all the multiple Nucleus devices:

“Hey everyone, dinner is ready!”

At the time of writing, the Broadcast All feature only supports audio messages and the transmission is only one-way, meaning nothing will be sent back from the other Nucleus devices.

Night Vision is useful for when the room is completely dark or not well-lit, enabling the IR LED on the Nucleus camera to be turned on automatically. Users are able to disable Night Vision from turning on automatically in the Settings.

 

 

 

Nucleus with Alexa

Users who also have the Amazon Echo are able to integrate their Nucleus with their Echo. To do this, users would need to log in to Alexa on the Nucleus and tell Alexa to enable the Nucleus Skill:

“Alexa, enable the Nucleus Skill.”

After this has been enabled, users can use voice commands, telling Alexa to initiate audio or video calls:

“Alexa, tell Nucleus to video call Living Room.”

 

Nucleus with Ring Video Doorbell

Homes installed with the Ring Video Doorbell – a WiFi video doorbell – are able to connect their Ring Doorbell to their Nucleus so they are able to see who is at the door right from the touchscreen. A notification will pop up on the Nucleus when the Ring Doorbell is pressed, like in the picture below:

 

The user would need to just press on the ‘View’ button to see a video feed from the Ring Doorbell, like in the picture below:

So there you have it! We now have a system to allow full communication to every room in our home, letting us hear AND see what’s on the other end. Granted, you’d have to purchase a separate one for each room you wish to connect, but having the ability to also scan through every room at night using the ‘Instant’ and ‘Night Vision’ features should also help sell the idea. When I’m home alone late at night and I hear noises in the house, this would be such a great system to check all the rooms!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first ‘episode’ of The ‘Star Trek’ Home series of articles… stay tuned for the next episode!

And if you’d like to purchase some Nucleus Anywhere Intercoms for your home, please check out the links below…