Residents of more than half of U.S. broadband homes would pay $2.99 per month for a service that combined energy, appliance and HVAC monitoring in a bundle, said Parks Associates. Consumer interest in value-added monitoring services “opens important revenue opportunities in the energy markets," said Tom Kerber, Parks director-home controls & energy research. In addition to bundles, successful providers will combine monitoring services enabled by connected products along with traditional service contracts and home warranties, Kerber said.
Amazon, with a score of 83.72, finished behind first-place Wegmans Food Markets in the 2015 Harris Poll Reputation Quotient study. Consumers rated companies on key "reputational dimensions" of products and services, emotional appeal, financial performance and vision and leadership, Harris said Wednesday. The reputations of the 100 most visible companies range from excellent (scores of 80+) to poor (scores of 50 to 64). Apple (80.69), at ninth, has fallen five spots since 2012. Among consumer tech companies, Google came in at 10 (80.44), Sony at 13 (79.93), Microsoft at 15 (79.94), Intel at 20 (78.54), LG at 23 (78.20), Hewlett-Packard at 42 (75.26) and Dell at 60 (72.13). Verizon led wireless carriers in 66th place with a “fair” rating of 69.74, followed by Sprint at 72 (67.66), T-Mobile at 75 (67.54), and AT&T at 76 (67.26). Video operators hovered in the fair to poor range on the list. DirecTV posted at 83 (65.27), Charter at 92 (60.30) and Comcast at 93 (60.64). Dish Network came in 98th out of the 100, with a rating of 58.07, according to rankings. Goldman Sachs bottomed out the list. “Reputation is far from static and is a business asset that is earned every day as people evaluate companies through the lens of what matters most to them,” Harris spokeswoman Carol Gstalder said. The study was done online among 27,278 U.S. respondents Oct. 20 to Dec. 18, with preliminary nominating research done with 4,034 respondents, Aug. 26-28 and Sept. 24-26.
SmartThings joined the Z-Wave Alliance and became a board member, the alliance said Thursday. SmartThings joins board members ADT, Evolve Guest Controls, Fakro, Ingersoll-Rand, Jasco Products, LG Uplus, Nortek Security & Control and Sigma Designs. Z-Wave Alliance Chairman Mark Walters cited SmartThings’ fast growth in its two years in the marketplace and its purchase by Samsung last summer as a “testament to their understanding of the smart home market and a validation of their platform.” The SmartThings system uses a hub that can communicate with 150 devices controllable from an app. Since the purchase by Samsung, the SmartThings ecosystem has doubled to more than 10,000 developers and more than 1 million installed SmartApps, the company said. More than 300 companies have adopted Z-Wave, the alliance said.
Cablevision‘s new Freewheel Wi-Fi-exclusive unlimited data phone service went on sale Thursday, Cablevision said in a news release. The service uses Motorola Moto G Smartphones that operate only while connected to Wi-Fi and are sold at Freewheel.com. Freewheel costs $29.95 a month or $9.95 for Cablevision’s Optimum Online customers, and doesn’t use a contract, the release said. “Freewheel will introduce additional features in the coming weeks and months that will underscore WiFi’s superiority over the legacy cellular model,” Cablevision said.
Mobile video -- followed by music streaming and apps -- will be the key driver of global mobile data traffic in 2015, said a Gartner analysis released Thursday. Citing data from mobile providers, Gartner Research Director Jessica Ekholm said mobile video is generating half of all mobile data and will grow to more than 60 percent of mobile data consumption by 2018. Two variables in projected data usage are video-calling services and music streaming, Ekholm said. Five minutes of FaceTime video chat on a 3G network uses just 15 MB of data but as the number of video callers grows, “the collective total amount can be large,” she said. If users shift to higher bit rate music services, that could also affect data usage significantly, she said. “Mobile music streaming can easily generate hundreds of megabytes of data,” depending on the service; a user listening to Spotify can consume more than twice as much data as a Pandora user, she said. Overall, mobile data traffic is forecast to grow 59 percent this year to 52 terabytes, up from 33 terabytes last year due to newer, faster networks and growing numbers of consumers using more affordable 3G and 4G handsets. Mobile data growth is expected to continue into 2016 at a 53 percent clip to 80 million terabytes, she said. By 2018, half of North American mobile connections will use 4G networks, Ekholm said, and 4G users will generate 46 percent of all mobile data traffic, consuming nearly 5.5 GB of data monthly -- three times that of a 3G smartphone. Cisco this week projected a surge of mobile data usage in the coming years (see 1502030041).
Following a CES jam-packed with Internet of Things and smart home hopefuls, IHS in a post-show analysis identified opportunities and challenges for the fledgling market. Privacy and the need for standards are formidable challenges facing the IoT, but huge opportunities exist in an “increasingly tech-savvy consumer market” for the entire chain from semiconductor companies to appliance makers, IHS said. It predicted a potential connected universe of 30-90 billion devices within five years. Competing technologies and standards threaten growth within the IoT ecosystem, said IHS, citing Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Smart, 6LoPAN, ZigBee and cellular. At CES, groups such as the Open Interconnect Consortium, backed by Atmel, Broadcom, Dell, Intel and Samsung, were working to establish a connectivity protocol to enable interoperability among connected devices within a few years. The cost to connect within the IoT is “cheap” enough to make the IoT a reality this year, said IHS. Sensors will drive opportunities in consumer devices, and “cost-effective silicon” will drive shipments of nearly 12 billion sensors into consumer and mobile applications, up from 5.6 billion in 2012, it said. Data collected from the sensors have “vast implications” as the information becomes aggregated across many users in the cloud, said the industry researcher. The ability to analyze large amounts of data to track behavioral trends -- such as the way millions of consumers use devices -- can create “a level of predictive intelligence that is completely novel,” said IHS. The ubiquity of the smartphone and its ability to communicate via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular positions it well as the gateway to the IoT, IHS said, but the smartphone has to continue to learn more languages as the IoT expands. On smart homes, “a holistic approach to IoT problem solving is needed,” instead of the piecemeal approach now offered by disparate devices, IHS said. It envisioned a “package” approach combining hardware, firmware, middleware, application software, cloud services and other components delivered by solution providers as the “key to integration.” The smart home market is still a few years away from mainstream penetration due to the lack of interoperability among different systems, which is "causing confusion for the average consumer,” said IHS.
Media promotions platform Taboola raised $117 million in a funding round, said a company news release Wednesday. The financing round was led by Fidelity Management and Research and included Advance Publications, Comcast Ventures, Marker and Steadfast Capital, it said. The financing will be used to expand the company’s global reach and “full-page personalization,” it said.
Sonos launched its first limited-edition speaker in a partnership with Blue Note Records and is looking to form similar deals with companies that “share our passion for collaboration, design and a great music experience,” company spokesman Eric Nielsen told us Wednesday. The Sonos Play:1 Blue Note Limited Edition speaker ($250), carries a $50 premium over the standard Play:1 and includes an exclusive channel within TuneIn's Blue Note on Sonos radio station that will be available for a year, Sonos said. After the year, "as of now, it will just simply end," Nielsen said of the exclusive channel. The Blue Note Artist Selects channel, offering exclusive playlists, will become available to customers when they buy the limited edition speaker and will be programmed exclusively into the menu for the speaker, Nielsen said. Customers who buy the speaker also will have access to the channel via other Sonos speakers they own, he said. Two other Blue Note stations on TuneIn are available to all Sonos users. Despite the name and the color of the Blue Note speaker -- with a finish that transitions from dark navy to cerulean blue -- the speaker doesn't include Bluetooth, Nielsen said. Sonos is producing 4,100 units, which will be available while supplies last, and timing for purchases will be released in coming weeks, Sonos said.
Pandora joined the Internet Association, becoming its 29th member, an IA news release said Wednesday. Other members include Amazon, Facebook and Google. IA asked Congress last week to renew Trade Promotion Authority and to consider limitations and exceptions for copyright (see 1501290054).
Legal research website Casetext raised $7 million in a Series A funding round, said a company news release Tuesday. The financing round was led by Union Square Ventures and included Formation 8 and former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer, it said. Casetext lets lawyers comment on court cases and legal statutes for free, it said.