This New Technology Revolutionizes Automation

“Hey Ben, what’s the coolest tech around?”

“Smart air conditioning, of course!”

Besides smart thermostats that connect to Wi-Fi so you can control the temperature in your house remotely using your smart phone, these tiny modern miracles are packed full of sensors that actually allow it to run itself on–demand, thereby minimizing your energy cost when you or Fido aren’t around.

How cool is that (pun intended!).

Cooler still is Toronto-based Ecobee, founded in 2007. It claims to have had the first Wi-Fi controlled smart thermostat on the market, but what really got my attention recently is the funding it just got: $35 million to continue their smart-home-technology development. The company controls roughly 24% of the U.S. market.

Then there’s Nest, which hit the big time when Google bought it out for $3.2 billion in 2014. Not too shabby for a thermostat company, right?

But does the value of these companies lie in their cool new technology alone? If it did, that would seem like a risky bet to make, wouldn’t you agree?

Well, I’m glad to say that I don’t think it does. I think their innovation is only part of their value. An even bigger component is their product’s ability to save energy costs.

Ecobee’s smart products save consumers an average of 23% on their household heating and cooling bills. Essentially, they can recoup their initial layout for the Ecobee system in 12 to 18 months. That’s not only smart technology, but a smart investment as well.

Even better… investors have enjoyed major growth in the company when it became obvious that Ecobee wasn’t stopping with smart thermostat technology.

A key part of their growth is tied to partnering with high-tech home automation systems, including Apple’s HomeKit, Amazon Echo and Samsung SmartThings, which allow users to also control things such as lighting, appliances and security, all over the Internet!

The best part is that these technologies come with a voice-activated artificial intelligence program, which essentially allows you to have a conversation with your house!

Yes! I’m geeking out over this stuff. But for good reason. There’s such potential here, not only for changing how we live, but for great investment opportunities as well. And this is one of my major fishing holes for my BioTech Intel Trader service. It’s not the only one, but it’s been good to us.

Alongside the biotech pond, we’ve been able to bank gains like 142%, 93%, 71%, 25% and 15% (listing only a few here). Of course, the unique system I’ve developed (mimicking the Department of Defense Command and Control systems) gives us an edge other investors don’t have… but the waters are teeming.

Of course, there’s something that all of these smart gadgets have in common: sensors! And lots of them.

The self-driving car-sensor startup called Quanergy just raised $90 million on a $1.59-billion valuation. Its sensor technology and artificial intelligence is similar to what’s used in smart-home systems, but the safety stakes are higher!

One key sensor technology being explored for self-driving cars is called light sensitive radar, or just LiDAR. This tech is already used in military jets and missiles, but is now available for your car!

LiDAR works by emitting millions of short pulses of lasers all around you, allowing software to create a real-time, high-definition 3-D image of your surroundings.

Thanks to advances in chip technology and processing, these systems have come down 10-fold in cost (from $80,000 to just $8,000), making them an option for use in vehicles now.

Smart sensing is disrupting the home automation and self-driving car industries as we know it. So it’s an area I’m keeping an Eagle-eye on for my BioTech Intel Trader subscribers.

You should keep an eye on it too.

Until then, stay plugged in!