Kabletown Comcast is taking advantage of the calm before the WWDC/E3 storm to announce two initiatives to help out 'round the home. First up, the company is adding a public WiFi channel to its newest Wireless Gateway hardware, enabling your home to become a muni-fi hotspot for roving Xfinity customers. Wondering how public usage might affect your personal bandwidth cap situation? Basically the way it works is if you're a Comcast customer, you log in to the WiFi (on someone else's modem) with your account username / password, and any bandwidth you use is counted on your account, not theirs. At the same time, it's launching EcoSaver for Xfinity Home, a cloud-based home control solution that'll turn your thermostat down (basically the existing Xfinity Home Secure offering, minus the alarm bits) when you're out and about and freak out the kid you'll pay to come house-sit during your vacation.
