Gadget-makers scramble for smart-homes control

A FLOOD of connected household gadgets is finally reaching consumers: but who will control them?

Nest Labs was bought last year for $3.96bn by Google. Picture: Bloomberg

A FLOOD of connected household gadgets is finally reaching consumers, raising a high-stakes question: who will control them?

Signs of a struggle can be found on the shelves of Home Depot. The big US retailer features prominent displays by both Nest Labs, the maker of hi-tech thermostats and smoke alarms that was bought last year for $US3.2 billion ($3.96bn) by Google, and Wink, a subsidiary of a gadget start-up called Quirky. General Electric is an investor in Quirky.

Nest and Wink offer software and web services to orchestrate interactions among their own home gadgets and those made by other companies, which are churning out internet-connected light bulbs, security cameras, entertainment devices, ovens, water heaters and washing machines. Smart-home promoters describe options such as garage-door openers that send a message to users if left open, ceiling fans that slow down when residents go to sleep, and lights that turn on when a door with a smart lock opens.

The two companies are far from alone. Indeed, the race to build smart-home platforms is one of the hottest topics at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Samsung Electronics, for example, is expected to use a kick-off keynote at CES to discuss collaboration with SmartThings, a start-up bought by the South Korean company that makes its own smart-home devices and serves as a command centre for others.

Other players staking out ­positions include Apple, which in June last year began courting com­panies to make future home devices using a platform called HomeKit; Belkin International’s WeMo unit, which sells its own gadgets as well as helping others work together; house device brands sold by some major retailers and offerings by communication giants such as ­AT&T and Comcast, which now install security systems along with other smart-home devices.

“Every single one of these US retailers and service providers want to have their own offering of a platform,” says Jimmy Busby, chief executive of CentraLite Systems, which designs home hardware and software for other companies.

The deluge of smart-home choices is part of a broader movement dubbed the internet of things — promoted by companies such as Intel and Cisco — that refers to adding computing, wireless communications and sensing capabilities to hardware used by consumers and companies.

Though some big names such as Apple and Google aren’t exhibiting at CES, hundreds of smart-home hardware makers are. Examples include Blossom, a start-up offering a new smart sprinkler controller to save on water bills. SkyBell, another start-up, plans to show its video doorbell, which has a camera and motion sensor that tells smartphone users who is at their door.

Lynx Grills is delivering on earlier plans for a smartphone-connected outdoor grill that can send users a message when it’s time to flip the meat. Dado Labs, a newly named company that helps add smart-home features to partner devices, says coming offerings include grills from Char-Broil and a coffee roaster from Behmor — both controlled with mobile apps.

Market researchers at Parks Associates recently estimated US shipments of such devices would exceed 20 million units by the end of 2014 — increasing to nearly 36 million units by 2017 — with about 13 per cent of US households with a broadband connection owning at least one smart-home device.

Smart-home proponents are trying to reach beyond affluent people with new homes to renters and others with simpler needs, such as monitoring movements of their children or ageing parents.

Obstacles abound, including a gaggle of incompatible wireless technologies for allowing devices to exchange data. But they haven’t stopped a bunch of new hardware start-ups or updated offerings from old-line companies such as GE, thermostat pioneer Honeywell or appliance maker Whirlpool.

Marketing a home platform “is really a big-scale game”, says Alex Hawkinson, chief executive of SmartThings, in explaining the company’s decision to sell the company to Samsung. “We saw this as the fastest way to reach a huge number of consumers.”