Everyone wants a piece of the smart home

It seems that everyone from home security leader ADT to the broadband and cable providers like Time Warner want a piece of the smart home. The logic goes that these companies already have existing relationships with millions of customers and importantly, have hardware in the home. Why not just layer on additional services like home energy management, lighting and thermostat controls and security?

Well apparently theyre not the only enterprise player with similar logic. In December, US Cellular announced its new home automation and security service called OnLook. Whats interesting about US Cellulars move is that it doesnt have existing home infrastructure. Rather,the company has the ability to move data over cellular networks and relationships with mobile phone customers.

Weve seen other cellular providers begin to get interested in IoT and the smarthome. Last fall, Spains Telefonica rolled out a modular IoT platform called Thinking Things. Its not quite a smart home system as much as something an early adopter would savorstackable blocks with sensors for temperature, humidity, and ambient light that can move globally with Telefonicas cellular network.

So whats at play here for the cellular providers? At a basic level, no one wants to be a dumb pipe and the cell providers dream of selling services atop their networks refuses to die (Remember Verizon VCast?). So if US Cellular can figure out a way to build services on its network, theyd love to do that.

But more realistically, companies like US Cellular, and AT&T, which has its own cellular and WiFi powered smart home offering Digital Life, look at their existing customer base and wonder if theres an opportunity to sell to that group, particularly because of US Cellulars strong understanding of mobile. Most of these systems from cellular and telco providers are semi-closed systems that have been engineered to be pretty resilient and stable, even if the closed systems is irritating in that it walls off integration with third party devices.

I wrote recently about how ADT and Life360 are trying to leverage Life360s existing relationship with millions of families through Life360s mobile location sharing app. ADT wants access to those families in order to use Life360s mobile app to provide a better user experience not just for its security services but for additional connected home services.

Similarly, US Cellular is in a position to try and leverage its relationship with mobile customers and its access to mobile broadband to roll out its own smart home service. The service itself includes a home control panel along with door/window sensors, smoke detectors, carbon monoxide sensors, a smart thermostat, a motion sensor and lamp/appliance modules for connected lighting/appliance control. The packages range from $99 to $199 a month and require two year contracts.

To my mind, these are still very pricy packages. AT&Ts Digital Life starts at $40 a month but gets progressively more expensive as you add and install more devices. For someone already paying $50-$100 per month in cell service, doubling that monthly bill seems like a hard sell. I think that gets even more true when you consider that smart home platforms from the likes of SmartThings, Lowes Iris or even Nests burgeoning platform only have hardware costs right now and arguably allow for an open ecosystem of better connected devices.

That said, the likes of Digital Life and OnLook are unlikely to be selling to the individual. Rather theyre targeting the family thats concerned about safety and energy savings. And most importantly, the family that sees the appeal in a one stop solution thats been tested and where all the devices work seamlessly together.

Will consumers trade their favorite devices for one ecosystem that works well even if the monthly cost is a bit high? Its early days in the smart home but we may just see families favor these one stop solutions from cell and telco providers while individuals go for their favorite point applications and build their own ecosystem. Im sure US Cellular would be more than happy just to get a chunk of any smart home family market that comes to fruition.

More here:
Everyone wants a piece of the smart home