The challenges the smart home market faces as it moves from the protected environment of the manufacturer's beta test bed to the harsh realities of the mainstream market were highlighted in a recent blog post by NPD connected technology analyst Eddie Hold. Hold, who lives in a 1910 home in suburban Nyack, New York, described his experience testing a Bluetooth-controlled smart lock as part of an effort to live with connected technology. Hold installed the do-it-yourself lock and found it wasn’t up to the rigorous real-world test lab of a 12-degree New York day. The “frigid weather was too much for the lock to handle,” he said speculating that the cold sapped the lock's battery life or the motor inside had frozen. Hold turned to his smartphone for a fix, but “it’s not that smart and couldn’t help me out,” he said. The smartphone was supposed to automatically initiate a command for the lock to open as he came within Bluetooth range of the lock, he said in a phone interview. A backup option on the phone app can initiate a manual command by pressing an unlock button, he said. Neither option worked. The lock "was trying but it wasn’t really doing anything,” Hold said. He could hear the motor trying to engage the lock, “so it wasn’t a Bluetooth issue,” he said, saying the "brand-new batteries” likely didn’t have enough juice to move the motor due to the cold weather. Aesthetics will challenge connected technology across the board whether it’s wearables or home automation, said Hold. “It has to bridge that gap between elegance and technology,” he said. It’s one thing to build a smart product that’s functional “but it has to look right for the house just as a wearable has to be something you’d be prepared to wear,” he said. For Hold, his door lock experience underscored that it’s “still early days for the connected home,” he told us. Connected home technology is “an interesting concept, but it has a long way to go before it hits the mainstream market,” he said. Most consumers who had Hold’s experience would likely have been turned off to home automation for a long time after, he said. “It pushes you back a couple of years before you’ll try it again.” The technology market has a history of stutter starts where things don’t always go smoothly out of the gate, Hold said. “That’s OK for the early adopter who goes in with eyes wide open, but for the mass market, don’t tell me my lock is not going to work when I need to get in," he said. "That’s not a beta test that’s going to get better,” he said. “That’s just an epic fail.”
Hughes Network Systems will begin offering HughesNet Gen4 service plans with SmartTechnologies, it said in a news release Wednesday. The new plans improve data compression, website loading, download speeds and raise Bonus Bytes to 50 GB a month, which gives customers extra data allowance that they can use during off-peak hours, it said.
Toshiba will merge several information and communication technology (ICT) business segments into a single Cloud & Solutions Co. subsidiary April 1 so it may “proactively promote the business that exploits” the Internet of Things, the company said in a Thursday announcement. Toshiba’s current Corporate Information Systems Division, Corporate Software Engineering Center and part of Toshiba Solutions Corp.’s system integration business will be merged into the Cloud & Solutions Co.; Toshiba I.S. Corp., which supplies information systems and services to the Toshiba Group, will become a Cloud & Solutions Co. subsidiary, Toshiba said. “Success in realizing new IoT-based services and solutions lies in deploying software technology, including cloud computing and big data processing, in order to handle huge amounts of data at high speed,” Toshiba said. “ICT specialists and engineers within Toshiba Group will be brought together in a unified organization, so as to enhance the development of big-data analysis technology, real-time information processing technology and other ICT-related technologies.” The new organization “will also develop Toshiba’s common IoT platform by combining diverse expertise and experience from across Toshiba’s business segments,” it said. “Toshiba’s common IoT platform will serve as infrastructure for offering advanced connectivity of systems and devices over the Internet, with the aim of creating new IoT services and solutions that realize all-encompassing monitoring, analysis and control.” Toshiba vowed it will undergo “a rapid shift in focus from being a business that merely provides products towards a business model that provides products that realize excellent user experiences.”
Motorola Solutions said it invested in public safety software developer SceneDoc. Motorola didn’t disclose the terms of the investment, but said Thursday it’s part of the company’s “strategy to advance mission-critical communications by connecting public safety and commercial customers with real-time data and intelligence like never before.” Law enforcement and public safety personnel use SceneDoc’s software as a “trusted digital notebook” to provide communication among officers in the field, dispatchers, command centers and agencies, Motorola said.
Spotify added a feature called Touch Preview. Designed to simplify the music search process, it allows users to preview a song, playlist, album or artist before hitting play, Spotify said. Those who like what they hear can save a track to their music library with a new swipe feature, said the streaming music provider. If they want to listen later, users can swipe to the left to save music to their library or swipe right to place it in queue. “For decades, music fans have had to rely on a rather clumsy way of scanning through songs, albums and playlists,” said Vice President-Product Sten Garmark. Touch Preview takes music discovery “to the next level,” he said, and results in “less time looking for the perfect music, and more time actually listening to it.” The new features rolled out to iOS users Thursday and will be available on other platforms soon, Spotify said.
A smart home system called Oomi launched Thursday via Kickstarter, offering contributors a starter kit for $229, roughly half off the $449 suggested retail price the system will command when it ships midyear. Developed by Fantem, Oomi’s peg is simple setup and use centering on patent-pending “Tap-and-Touch” technology, the company said. When an Oomi device is tapped using the Oomi Touch tablet, options for setup, configuration and tutorials for the device are displayed on the tablet screen, said Fantem. Oomi is "lowering the barrier to entry for home automation for consumers of all types -- whether tech-savvy or not," the company said. Oomi uses Z-Wave for communication and will be able to control 1,200 Z-Wave products when it ships, Fantem said. The Oomi system has self-learning algorithms and adaptive automation, said to learn the user’s habits, schedules and preferences. Oomi can “determine if the user’s commute will take longer than expected and automatically re-set their alarm clock to wake them up earlier so they are not late for work,” Fantem said. The starter kit includes a hub, tablet and compatible wall outlet switch, it said.
About 17 percent of U.S. broadband homes are likely to subscribe to HBO’s Go OTT service, said Parks Associates research. Nine in 10 of likely subscribers currently subscribe to a pay-TV service and half would cancel their current service after subscribing to HBO’s streaming service, Parks said. The percentage of subscribers interested in over-the-top video services is “trending upward,” and more industry players are planning to launch their own OTT services, said Brett Sappington, research director, citing Dish Network’s Sling TV OTT service announced at CES (see 1501050037), which includes sports programming from channels including ESPN, TBS and TNT. Sports programming could be a major incentive for consumers to switch to stand-alone OTT services “as sports is one of the primary reasons consumers elect to keep pay-TV services,” said Sappington. He said Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications in Canada unveiled their shomi online video service in November, while in Europe, players are bringing OTT services as a hedge against Netflix’s arrival into their markets. Sappington called 2015 “the year of OTT.”
DTS and Starz partnered to enable Encore Playm Movieplex Play and Starz Play subscribers on the Xbox One to hear content in multichannel surround sound using DTS-HD, the companies said Wednesday. It’s the first time authenticated TV Everywhere services have been made available using DTS-HD, they said. Advanced audio technology “such as DTS-HD” enables viewers to be “more immersed and engaged with the content,” said Ray Milius, executive vice president-programming and IT operations, Starz. Starz Play has more than 400 monthly selections, including 300 first-run movies from Disney; Encore Play offers more than 1,500 monthly viewing options; and Movieplex Play makes available 200 movies each month, Starz said.
Orvito launched its first product, the Smart Switch Panel, that’s said to enable control of all electrical home appliances “anytime, anywhere.” The panel can control devices, trigger presets, sense motion and set energy consumption goals as part of the Nucleo Internet of Things platform, the company said. The panel, based on Wi-Fi, can be retrofitted into existing electrical switch outlets and doesn’t require additional wiring, it said. Smart Switch Panel captures data and usage patterns from devices, generates insights and makes actionable recommendations to users, the company said. The panel can be controlled from anywhere via the Internet and can trigger an action or set of actions based on an event captured on webcams or an alert from safety sensors in all electrical appliances, the company said.
Bitcoin payment processor Coinbase raised $75 million in a Series C funding round, the single largest financing round for a bitcoin company, Coinbase said in a blog post Tuesday. DFJ Growth led the funding round, which included Andreessen Horowitz, Ribbit Capital and Union Square Ventures, it said. BBVA, the New York Stock Exchange and the United Services Automobile Association also participated, becoming the first financial institutions to make a “major” investment in a bitcoin company, said Coinbase. Former Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit and former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer also contributed to the round. PayPal-backed Braintree, Dell, Dish Network, 1-800-Flowers.com, United Way and Wikimedia Foundation partnered with Coinbase for accepting payments last year (see 1409160068).