Universal Electronics Inc. Expands UEI TIDE Family Portfolio with New Features and Capabilities

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Universal Electronics Inc. (UEI), a global leader in smart home technology, is excited to announce the expansion of its UEI TIDE family portfolio, showcasing new features and capabilities at the upcoming International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this January.

The UEI TIDE family, known for its innovative approach to climate control and energy management in smart homes, now includes enhanced functionalities that promise to elevate the user experience and provide greater control over home environments.

The expanded UEI TIDE family portfolio introduces the UEI TIDE Dial, Touch and Bridge available in various SKUs to cater to different market needs. The UEI TIDE Dial (US24) and UEI TIDE Dial (EU24/EUUSB) models now support Zigbee Coordinator functionality, enabling a complete energy management platform seamlessly integrated with HVAC systems, energy insight capabilities, and new software-defined occupancy and presence detection technology, QuickSet® homeSense. These models also offer Matter support, allowing for wide interoperability with major smart home ecosystems.

UEI TIDE Dial's new capabilities, including built-in Zigbee hub functionality, offer several specific benefits that enhance its capabilities and integration within smart home ecosystems:

• Managed Network Formation: As a Zigbee coordinator, the UEI TIDE Dial can form and manage a Zigbee network. In new installations, this allows for cost effective delivery of a managed climate control or home automation experience when other hubs or ecosystems don’t exist.
• Device Integration: The UEI TIDE Dial can seamlessly integrate with various Zigbee-enabled devices, such as environmental or safety sensors, Smart Thermostatic Radiator Valves (TRV), smart shades, and smart plugs. This capability can be complemented through integration with IP-enabled smart home devices. This allows for a unified control system where multiple devices can communicate and work together efficiently.
• Energy Management: By acting as a central hub with built-in on-device automation capabilities, the UEI TIDE family of smart thermostats can optimize energy usage within the home with or without internet connectivity. It can manage HVAC systems, control heating and cooling levels, and adjust settings based on real-time data from connected devices, leading to energy savings and improved efficiency.
• Energy Insights: UEI TIDE Dial now supports delivery of actionable energy insights, on device, with recommendations to optimize cost and comfort for users. This feature, when integrated with the household’s energy provider, can help visualize usage patterns and recommended optimizations.
• Occupancy & Presence Detection: This on-device occupancy and presence detection technology, powered by QuickSet homeSense, enables the thermostat to learn and adapt to varying home environments and individual user habits, and offer a scalable, personalized, app-less, privacy-first energy management solution.

These benefits make the UEI TIDE Family of Climate Control solutions a powerful and versatile component in smart home automation, providing users with enhanced climate control and energy management.

One of the standout features of the UEI TIDE Family is its ability to manage both central and space heating/AC systems, providing optimized climate control and energy savings. Users can control hybrid systems that mix central and mini-split systems from a single thermostat through support for IR, making it easier to manage the whole home climate. UEI TIDE Dial and Touch also support nevo®.ai, UEI’s AI-powered agent that offers support for on-boarding, remote control and built-in tier 0 support, enhancing user convenience and control throughout the lifecycle of the product.

In addition to these enhancements, UEI is offering a sneak peek of its next-generation UEI TIDE PRO platform. This upcoming platform will feature a larger, higher-resolution display, support for on-device AI processing, Thread and Open Thread Border Router (OTBR), and QuickSet 7 support with a built-in Matter Controller with Multi-Admin capabilities. The new platform will also introduce an advanced software framework, allowing for the development of operating system and graphical user interfaces under a limited power budget.

Arsham Hatambeiki, SVP of Products and Technology at UEI, commented, "We are thrilled to expand our UEI TIDE family portfolio with new capabilities that enhance climate control and energy management by addressing key friction points, and delivering on-device actionable insights. Our next-generation platform will set a new standard for home automation and reimagine the role of a smart thermostat in the home."

Join UEI at the Venetian Expo, Booth #53023, starting January 7th through 10th, 2025 to experience the future of smart home technology with the expanded UEI TIDE family portfolio and get a glimpse of the next-generation UEI TIDE platform.