Medication Dispenser, Smart Home Sentry, and More: Here are the Winners of Our Sigma Z-Wave Challenge

Sigma Designs and Make: recently teamed up to present the Z-Wave Smart Home Maker Challenge, which tasked makers to design an innovative new idea that could make your home more convenient, comfortable, affordable, or fun for you and your family (including pets). The entrants created prototypes of their ideas using Z-Wave wireless technology, and the judges graded them on the following criteria: usability; creativity; originality; design; and scalability.

We received tons of great submissions — thank you all! — and today are excited to announce the winners. Our congratulations to the following:

Grand prize: Cameron Henkel — Aging in Place with Z-Wave: Remote Medication Dispenser — Using Z-Wave, Cameron designed a remote, smart medication dispenser that could be pre-loaded with the proper medication doses that would then be delivered on a set schedule to the user but also alert a caretaker if a dose was missed. As the grand-prize winner, Cameron will receive a hosted-trip to CES in Las Vegas, January 9-12, 2018. His smart home project will be showcased in the Z-Wave Alliance Smart Home Pavilion, located in the Sands (Booth 41717).

2nd Place: Soren Daugaard — Smart Home Automation Powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) — Soren entered the competition with the goal to design a smart home experience. Rather than rely on a remote or smartphone to trigger specific smart home events, Soren sought out to create CLAIRE (a Continuously Learning AI Rules Engine) that would learn his habits and automatically adjust his smart home based off the data collected by sensors around his home and the time of day. As the second-place winner, Soren will receive $2,000 worth of certified Z-Wave devices from secondary sponsor Zwaveproducts.com.

3rd Place: Tim Sills — IoT Sentry: Tim created an indoor/outdoor monitoring solution using off the shelf sensors and Z-Wave technology to create the IoT Sentry. The IoT Sentry houses Z-Wave sensors, is Internet accessible, and integrates with online service providers to trigger actions. It can lock/unlock doors, turn on and off lights, control water systems, send SMS messages, write to Google Docs, and control devices outside of the Z-Wave eco-system. As the third-place winner, Tim will receive $1,000 worth of certified Z-Wave devices from secondary sponsor Zwaveproducts.com.