New Apple-Based ClareHome Automation System Taps Cloud
By Julie Jacobson
System blends Mac Mini with cloud-based apps for remotely managing a home's lights, thermostats, security system, A/V, cameras, more.

There’s a new Mac-based home automation game in town. It’s called ClareHome and it comes from a new company called Clare Controls – well, not entirely new. Clare founder Brett Price is president of the integration firm Tempus Electronic Lifestyles based in Sarasota, Fla.

ClareHome is billed as “the first home automation system managed from the cloud and run on a Mac.” The original manufacturer of Mac-based home automation for the channel, Savant Systems, might beg to differ. But it seems there is a slightly more substantial “cloud-based” component with Clare (CE Pro is getting the full story later this week).



The system runs on a Mac Mini, but all of the apps for the system (initially) reside in the cloud. Some of them can be downloaded (purchased, presumably) by consumers themselves; others, like drivers for certain subsystems, are available only through dealers – kind of like Control4’s 4Store app store, but more of it.

Clare calls its drivers AppModules, and they are written (or will be upon launch) for most of the popular subsystems.

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