Best Buy pitched security for smart homes during summer vacations in an email blast to customers Friday. “Check in while you’re away” headlined the email promoting a Ring Video Doorbell for “instant alerts” and the ability to chat with visitors “even if you’re visiting someplace else” and a Netgear Arlo Pro camera to “monitor your home from your hotel room with wire-free motion-activated cameras.” The ad also pitched smart locks, thermostats and lighting, plus MyQ garage door openers. For installation, the retailer pushed “Smart Setup” from the Geek Squad for smart home products.

Some 90 percent of consumers expect to control more of their home wirelessly in the next six to 12 months, said a Thursday Futuresource report citing results of a survey of 4,000 consumers in France, Germany, the U.K. and U.S. Nearly one in three consumers has at least one smart home device installed, with the highest smart home penetration in the U.S. (38 percent). German respondents showed the most resistance to the technology with 20 percent smart home adoption, Futuresource said. Smart lighting and smart thermostats are among the most popular categories, and home security was given most often as the first smart home device users installed. Climate control products are growing, but it’s a “fragmented” category with little brand recognition, said the research company. Two-thirds of respondents said music and AV content was important in the connected home. Users who installed one smart home device are more likely to want to automate their homes further, said analyst Filipe Oliveira. Consumers who had smart home devices installed as part of a service from an energy, telecom or security provider indicated overall satisfaction and the "overwhelming majority" planned to renew subscriptions, he said. Referencing voice-powered speakers as another driver of smart home adoption, Oliveira said music streaming was the top use case, but respondents also used the speakers for controlling temperature and lights. Consumers were open to the idea of buying a smart appliance next time they need to replace a washing machine or refrigerator, but appliance makers "need to find ways to stimulate consumer interest again," he said. Priority should be given to appliance features with clear benefits such as safety or cost-savings, said Oliveira.

Lutron’s Caseta wireless dimmers and Maestro occupancy sensors are part of the smart home package in Lennar’s Wi-Fi Certified Home Design program, the lighting company said. Dimmers and occupancy sensors will be part of the standard package, and homeowners will have the option to add more devices after they move in, Lutron said. Select communities will include Lutron’s Serena battery-powered window shades, it said. Lennar is the first home builder to put homes for sale under the Wi-Fi Alliance’s Wi-Fi Certified Home Design program, with homes to go on sale next month, it announced last week. Occupants in the Lennar Wi-Fi homes will be able to control lights, the front-door lock and the thermostat using Amazon Alexa voice control, said the home builder. David Kaiserman, president of Lennar Ventures, called Alexa a “game changer.” Ruckus Wireless will provide the controller-less wireless LAN that’s billed as easy to deploy at an affordable price, along with wireless access points to ensure no Wi-Fi dead spots are in the homes, said Lennar. Other Wi-Fi-based products in the Lennar connected homes will be supplied by Samsung SmartThings, Ring, Honeywell, Baldwin, Kwikset and Sonos. The systems are Android and iOS compatible.

A month after it built out its retail presence through a Best Buy partnership, (see 1705040062), Vivint Smart Home unveiled Vivint Smart Properties for rental properties Tuesday. The program is designed to enable property developers and managers to boost value by adding smart home offerings as an amenity. Products in the program include smart locks, lights, doorbell cameras, indoor cameras, and thermostats, said the company. Vivint is also pitching the program as a way for property managers to save money by using smart home technology. Managers can monitor energy usage and onboard new residents remotely by transferring control of a unit’s smart home system, it said. The company's privacy policy ensures that once a unit is occupied, managers no longer have full access to a renter’s system until the unit is vacated, it said. Vivint believes smart home technology “will rapidly become a staple for rental properties throughout the country,” said Tom Few, vice president-business development.

Samsung’s Connect Home mesh network Wi-Fi system, built on the company’s SmartThings platform, will launch Sunday in an exclusive preorder offer through Best Buy. The product goes on sale July 2, ahead of a nationwide retail release July 16, Samsung said in a Thursday announcement. The Connect Home hubs offer connectivity via ZigBee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth 4.1, and 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi, it said, and up to five hubs can be combined in the mesh network to deliver coverage up to 7,500 square feet, Samsung said. Connect Home comes in two versions: a three-pack ($379), designed for homes up to 4,500 square feet and a single hub ($169) for homes up to 1,500 square feet. The Connect Home Pro ($249) is targeted to homes with high-bandwidth needs for gaming, streaming and home offices, Samsung said. Connect Home redefines the home network, said Bill Lee, Samsung vice president-smart home product marketing, calling it a “simple solution” that expands Wi-Fi coverage in a home and offers the ability, via smartphone, to “monitor, automate and control smart devices using Samsung SmartThings.” Out of the gate, the hub will be compatible with hundreds of Works With SmartThings devices, Samsung said. Hubs will be protected by hardware-based security technologies that will be kept current with automatic firmware updates, it said. The system’s app guides users on placement of hubs in the home to ensure optimal performance and is said to simplify connectivity, device integration and setup. Users can see and manage connected devices, set parental controls and allow guest access via the app, Samsung said. In a blog post Thursday, Best Buy said Connect Home will help consumers avoid two home network issues: “that spot -- or two -- in the house where the Wi-Fi doesn’t reach, and where the movie you’re watching endlessly buffers.” Samsung didn’t respond to questions.

Qualcomm is billing its new mesh networking platform as a way for OEMs and broadband carriers to deliver connected home experiences, said the company in a Computex news release. It said the platform delivers robust and consistent connectivity for smart home devices, has voice control capability, centralized management and security and mesh system features required for carrier-grade networks. The platform’s reference design gives OEMs an accelerated path for developing mesh networking products, it said. The Qualcomm Mesh Networking Platform is built on Qualcomm’s IPQ40x8/9 network system-on-chip.

Belkin’s Wemo brand will enable Apple HomeKit compatibility for its 2 million-plus Wemo products on the market, it announced Thursday. Wemo users can add HomeKit compatibility with the HomeKit Wemo bridge, allowing them to use the Siri voice assistant to give smart home commands using an iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch, Belkin said. Sample voice commands included turning on Wemo and dimming lights. Users will be able to include Wemo products in HomeKit scenes, Belkin said. Pricing will be announced when the products ship this fall, said the company. Wemo also supports Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Nest Learning Thermostat’s Home and Away modes as well as IFTTT (If This Then That), said the company.

New York state settled with a manufacturer of Bluetooth locks that researchers found to be insecure, said Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office in a Monday news release. The locks by Utah-based Safetech Products failed to secure passwords and other information required for operation, making consumers vulnerable to hacking and theft, the AG's office said. Under the settlement, Safetech agreed to establish a security program, encrypt all passwords, electronic keys and other credentials in its locks and prompt users to change the default password after initial setup, it said.

Roughly a third of U.S. broadband homes have some familiarity with smart home devices, Parks Associates said in a Friday report. Moreover, a bigger swath of consumers “see value” in smart home devices, including smart door locks, video door bells and networked cameras, compared with those who say they're familiar with the products, “indicating a robust opportunity for broader adoption and usage,” it said. Parks estimates more than a quarter of U.S. broadband homes own a smart home system. But nearly 70 percent of smart product owners own a device that's not connected to a smart home system and only 35 percent of smart product owners have the product integrated into a smart home system, it said: “We're seeing an ever-increasing demand from customers wanting to use speech and gesture to interact with IoT devices and services.”

The global smart doorbell market is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 78 percent through 2021, said a Technavio report Thursday. The stand-alone doorbell subcategory had 91 percent of the smart doorbell market last year, with integrated versions the rest, said the research company. The Americas are the largest market for smart doorbells due to their lead in smart home penetration, it said.