Tag Archives: cities

You’ll Never Guess The U.S.’s “Most Automated” City

Home automation is growing. Fast.

So fast that it’s hard to believe it was only a year ago that Amazon.com built a special section of its website to cater to the smart home crowd. And to celebrate that first anniversary, Amazon has shared some new statistics on which U.S. cities are leading the way on building the home of the future.

So who snagged the top spot among the country’s most automated cities? It’s got to be San Francisco, right? Home to Silicon Valley’s cutting-edge technologists. The people who will be first in line to buy the new Apple Watch (or maybe just scoff at you for choosing iOS over Android)?

Or maybe it’s our hometown, Boston, where the Internet of Things is exploding? Or maybe Boulder, CO where fellow techstars alums Revolv are based?

Nope. All wrong.

Based on the number of connected products sold per capita among U.S. cities with more than 400,000 residents, Amazon’s top five “most automated” cities are:

  1. Miami
  2. Seattle
  3. San Francisco
  4. Atlanta
  5. Portland

That’s right. The town that Will Smith could spend a few days in is the same city leading the smart home revolution.

Way to go Miami. Other U.S. metros, time to step it up.

Image credit: Daniel Reichert/Flickr. CC license.

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Think Your City’s The Hottest? You May Be Right.

It’s Labor Day. The unofficial end to summer. A day to stop working and remember to put away your white pants. (Or, since it’s a national holiday and you don’t have to work, maybe you didn’t even bother with pants today. We leave that to you.)

But if you live in a city, don’t put away those summertime clothes just yet. According to a new report from Climate Central, cities are hot and getting hotter. Due to the “heat island effect” which traps solar heat in cities’ dark paved surfaces, urban areas tend to be much hotter than their surroundings.

In a survey of 60 cities, the group found:

Single-day urban temperatures in some metro areas were as much as 27°F higher than the surrounding rural areas, and on average across all 60 cities, the maximum single-day temperature difference was 17.5°F.

Check the interactive graphic below to see how your city fares in the study. And most of all—stay cool!

Image credit: James Willamor/Flickr. CC license.

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