Owners of selected Renault cars can now control various objects of their home from inside their car.
New cars equipped with the latest Easy Link connected system will offer the service, which uses technology developed by Otodo, a French company specialising in smart homes.
As well as controlling household items, Renault owners will be able to send instructions from their home to a connected vehicle via a smartphone or connected speaker.
There are two available scenarios, with different instructions associated with each. These are:
- Leaving Home – puts the home into ‘sleep’ mode. This could include switching the central heating to energy-saving mode, closing the shutters and turning off the lights
- Arriving Home – ‘wakes’ the home. Drivers will be prompted to activate the scenarios based on the distance between the vehicle and home
Users must press ‘OK’ on the Renault’s touchscreen to activate a scenario. The instructions are sent to the home automatically and simultaneously.
Renault home tech a ‘trailblazing experience’
Jean-Francois Labal, marketing and partnership head for connected cars and services at Groupe Renault, said: “Cars need to blend into our digital lives. With this service, we’re offering our customers a trailblazing experience and a completely secure system to connect their home’s connected objects to their vehicle.
“The interface to set it up is very intuitive and it comes with two advantages: it’s automatic so it makes life simpler and it saves energy by switching lights and heating on and off as needed.”
Eric Denoyer, CEO at Otodo, added: “Our platform has enabled Groupe Renault to create a simple and universal link between smart cars and smart homes, that works across brands and technologies. Very soon, everyone will be able to use this platform to organise their daily life from their car.”
The connected technology will be previewed at CES Las Vegas from 7 to 10 January, before rolling out on the all-new Clio, Captur and Zoe electric car later in 2020.