Smart Home Platform Provider to Cable Operators Urges Security Dealers To Sell Home Automation Amid 2G Cutoff
Connected home platform supplier iControl Networks -- which powers security and home automation services offered by ADT Pulse, Bell Aliant, Comcast Xfinity, Cox Homelife, Time Warner Cable IntelligentHome and others -- is courting security dealers with its new iControl One…
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home automation platform. On a webcast presented last week by Parks Associates, iControl Vice President-Marketing Greg Roberts encouraged dealers to use the sunsetting of the 2G mobile network -- due in 2016 -- as a means to upsell existing customers to interactive services and home automation. Some 4 million to 5 million security panels in the U.S. are equipped with 2G radios, Roberts said. Regardless of whether the 2G cutoff occurs on schedule, those customers still “need to be upgraded,” he said. The platform includes a Web portal, apps for iOS and Android devices and iControl’s 3D user interface that allows users to control each smart device in their homes by touch screen, he said. To broaden the appeal of smart home features, iControl added Z-Wave and Wi-Fi radios to the 3G radio at a cost that’s below that of stand-alone radios, Roberts said. Connectivity from the panel to the router is over Wi-Fi, and when the system is activated, Wi-Fi and broadband will be the primary communications links out of the home, he said.