Control Your Home From Your Phone

Story first appeared in VentureBeat.

Home automation is a hot category that just got even hotter. And possibly, just a bit easier. Today Electric Imp is announcing the Imp, a cloud-based approach to monitoring and managing everything you own.

The venture-backed startup in Los Altos, California, is taking a manufacturer-centric approach to the automation market — so don’t expect to be able to buy an Imp to retrofit existing devices tomorrow. Electic Imp is releasing a developer preview bundle in June, giving manufacturers the tools to make their devices Imp-compatible.

Think pre-warming your house when returning from a vacation, or watering your lawn via smartphone. Or turning on the TV and a few lights while you’re out for dinner to convince potential crooks you’re still at home. And maybe, a fridge that re-orders food as you’re about to run out.

In a statement provided to VentureBeat, the founder and CEO of Electric Imp said that until now, creating connected devices was a huge challenge for any vendor. The home automation category is a currently mess of competing standards and technologies. Device communication protocols include Wi-Fi, Firewire, USB, and infrared, and home automation product ecosystems include X10, UPB, mControl, HomeSeer, Control4, Vivint, PowerHome, and ActiveHome Pro, among others.

Electric Imp intends to solve that by reducing complexity. Install a tiny Imp card, connect it to your home Wi-Fi, and control it via the Imp cloud service. Each device in your home instantly knows about the other devices and can communicate with them. Then use your browser or smartphone anywhere on the planet to control your home.

The current reality is a little more complex: you have to choose control and automation software, find, purchase, and install  devices specifically rated to interoperate with that system, and install software or an embedded server to manage it all.

Electric Imp changes all this by bringing the power of an easy to use, cloud-based service to almost any device and allowing the internet to interact with everyday objects. Interaction will be possible on three levels: Imp to Imp, Imp to people,, and Imp to services.

The approach makes sense, since it’s embedding most of the intelligence of the system in the cloud. It’s reminiscent of developing nations skipping legacy telephone grids and moving straight to cellular communications. In addition, by  taking a manufacturer-centric approach, Electric Imp has a chance to disrupt currently consumer-focused home automation market. According to a company statement, integrating an Imp slot into a device should cost less than a dollar.

But there’s a great deal of existing competition in this space. In addition, powerful players like Microsoft are bringing solutions to market such as HomeOS, AT&T wants to provide our Digital Life, and Google would love us to all have Android@Home. Can an iOS or Apple iHome system be far behind?

To win, Electric Imp is going to have to innovate fast, go to market hard, and find some luck along the way. The company just closed a series A round of funding from Redpoint Ventures and Lowercase Capital, which should help. And the co-founders do have some impressive credentials: the founder is a former iPhone engineering manager, and another co-founder designed Gmail.

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Sam's Club to Use Wi-Fi to Push TV's

The Wall Street Journal

Customers to Get Unfettered Internet Access to Test Devices—and Check Up on Competitors' Prices

This holiday season, Sam's Club is making a big bet on Internet-connected television sets—and hopes that providing free Wi-Fi in its stores will help draw customers to the new technology.

The Wal-Mart Stores Inc. membership warehouse chain's more than 500 clubs will be outfitted with Wi-Fi by November. The move is testament to Sam's Club's high hopes for Internet TV sets and other Web-enabled devices this holiday shopping season.

By providing Wi-Fi, Sam's Club says it hopes to help customers better understand such products, which are still relatively new to the market. "This will allow a member to walk up to a Samsung LCD Internet-enabled TV and see how to find his Facebook page or stream video from Vudu," said Sam's Club Chief Executive Brian Cornell in an interview. "It is an intimidating category with lots of complexity."

But Wi-Fi also will allow Sam's Club shoppers more reliable Internet access on their smartphones in the warehouse, where they can find additional information about what they are buying or check competitors' prices. AT&T Inc. is providing the network, accessible to any Sam's Club member through a few key strokes, according to Michael Chaney, Sam's senior director of technology services.

Mr. Cornell said Sam's Club is "very comfortable" with its members' checking competitors' prices.

Consumer-electronics experts said they expect in coming months to see more retailers set up Wi-Fi in their stores to better demonstrate how products work. Wi-Fi is available at Apple Inc. stores, at Best Buy Co., and at stores owned by the consumer electronics chain TigerDirect Inc., which purchased the CompUSA brand in 2008.

"There's clearly a lot of need for Internet access in retail stores," said Stephen Baker, consumer electronics analyst at NPD Group, a market research firm. Retailers spend "all that money to put information online, so they want to make sure customers get the benefit of that, regardless of where they are shopping," he added.

Internet-connected sets accounted for 11% of all TV sales in the first six months of the year, and that figure is expected to grow, according to NPD.

Shoppers have been able to access the Internet via smartphones in stores without the aid of Wi-Fi, but adding the service—which provides wireless high-speed Internet service within a relatively small radius, or hot spot—removes dead zones and increases the reliability for Internet access throughout the store.

Retail analysts said Wi-Fi will be an important addition at a retail chain such as Sam's Club, known for low prices but a limited amount of sales help. Mr. Cornell said Sam's Club has beefed up consumer-electronics training and also began offering a 24-hour phone service where members can access information and assistance from tech experts.

Best Buy, the largest seller of consumer electronics, said it isn't worried about stepped up competition.

For the holidays, "we will offer a superlative experience for consumers who want to understand how Internet TV options connect to their lifestyles and their other gear," said Best Buy spokesman Scott Morris. "Certainly you can expect an unparalleled breadth of selection and highly competitive pricing."

Sam's also is launching an app for all smartphones that will eventually let shoppers scan products at home and create shopping lists. They can access Sam's Club discounts with their phone app that will be deducted automatically at checkout.

Best Buy is testing a similar phone app called Shopkick in its San Francisco stores that will allow customers to redeem rewards points and personalized discounts at checkout by providing their cellphone number.

An increasing number of high-end television sets offered for sale in stores will have Internet connectivity this year, as streaming movie services available as part of the sets have proven popular with consumers. Internet connectivity helped increase sales of Blu-ray players last year, after sales languished for several years.

This year's television models will have Internet connectivity built in, instead of accessed through a wire that needed to be plugged in—a consumer turn-off, according to NPD's Mr. Baker.

With the advent of more store Wi-Fi networks, retailers said they aren't concerned about shoppers increasingly using their smartphones to check competitors' prices in their stores. "They know they are not going to lose customers over a few dollars, and many retailers have price-match programs," said Mr. Baker.

Wi Fi Direct For Home Consumption

Story from Business Week

A consortium that includes Intel, Cisco, and Apple is set to release new technology called Wi-Fi Direct that will turn a slew of gadgets into hotspots

Going Wi-Fi is about to get a lot easier. For many consumers, setting up an in-home Wi-Fi connection point is something of a hassle. Before you can enjoy the convenience of logging onto the Web without cables and wires, you need to hook up some gear and create your own "hotspot."

But that's set to change come mid-2010, when a tech upgrade will make it easier for users of consumer electronics to exchange files between electronic gadgets.

On Oct. 14, the Wi-Fi Alliance, a tech industry consortium, said its members will release technology that effectively turns gadgets into mini access points, able to create wireless connections with other Wi-Fi-enabled gadgets or broadband modems within a radius of about 300 feet. The alliance includes Intel (INTC), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Apple (AAPL), and more than 300 other makers of the equipment that runs Wi-Fi networks, often used to provide wireless Web connections in homes, cafés, hotels, and airports.

Sales Erosion Possible

The new technology, called Wi-Fi Direct, will be built directly into consumer electronics and automatically scan the vicinity for existing hotspots and the gamut of Wi-Fi equipped devices, including phones, computers, TVs, and gaming consoles. Owners of most existing Wi-Fi-enabled devices will be able to upgrade to Wi-Fi Direct with a simple software download.

While the revamp may make life easier for consumers and business owners, it may erode sales of other Wi-Fi compatible equipment. For starters, Wi-Fi Direct may curb demand for routers and other products that make up the $1 billion annual market for Wi-Fi access points, now present in about 30% of U.S. homes. "The IT department doesn't have to set up an access point," says Victoria Fodale, a senior analyst at In-Stat. "Same thing in the home. You can do the same thing with less equipment." Cisco and Netgear (NTGR) are among the biggest sellers of Wi-Fi equipment.

The feature also could disrupt usage of wireless Bluetooth technology that, for example, helps users of the Apple iPhone play games with each other outside a wireless network. In the future, some consumers may use Wi-Fi Direct instead. Though Wi-Fi connectivity tends to drain battery life faster than Bluetooth, it's also faster and allows for transfer of richer multimedia content like video.

Marketing Blitz on the Way

For Cisco, Wi-Fi Direct could make up for lost sales of Wi-Fi access points through other Wi-Fi-enabled equipment including camcorders. The company didn’t make a representative available for this story.

Members of the Wi-Fi Alliance plan to promote their new technology with a major marketing blitz. Intel has already begun briefing retailers, who will promote the feature in their stores, says Gary Martz, senior product manager at Intel. The chipmaker will also heavily promote the capability in the first quarter of 2010 as it unveils its next-generation Wi-Fi chip package for computers.

Chipmaker Marvell (MRVL), meantime, is planning to collaborate with its consumer-electronics partners to mark enabled devices with special stickers and to promote the capability through ads. "We will make a big splash with Wi-Fi Direct," says Bart Giordano, product marketing manager at Marvell.

A Boon for Smartphones

Almost half of the 760 North American consumers surveyed in May by In-Stat said they use their Wi-Fi-enabled devices for more than connecting to the Internet. "We feel that it opens up a whole new set of applications and use cases," Giordano says. "Wi-Fi Direct will really drive the next generation of growth in [the use of Wi-Fi] consumer devices."

The feature could boost usage of Wi-Fi capabilities in smartphones and television sets in particular. "It makes adding Wi-Fi to devices that don't have Wi-Fi more compelling," says Kelly Davis-Felner, marketing director at Wi-Fi Alliance. Marvell is already talking to makers of TVs, few of whom offer Wi-Fi connectivity today but are now considering adding the capability to let users wirelessly transfer photos and video from their Wi-Fi-enabled cameras, camcorders, and netbooks directly onto TV screens.

There's also growing interest from manufacturers of cheaper cell phones, Giordano says. Today, Wi-Fi can be found mostly on high-end smartphone models. "The new use cases are really going to allow the technology to proliferate among devices it's not been considered for," Giordano says. "We are expecting that this will drive a lot of growth for us." Worldwide, shipments of Wi-Fi-enabled cell phones should rise from 64.9 million units last year to 314 million units in 2013, according to consultant IDC. "This technology is going to be ubiquitous in every notebook and netbook in 12 to 18 months; it's going to be a very fast ramp," Martz says. "And I think that's a pretty conservative [estimate]."