Ten years ago, the “smart home” was all the rage. Almost every company in our market had a concept center or display house that showed the functionality of the digital home. I remember a visit to GTE’s offices in the Dallas area, where they had a multiroom digital home display that showed a variety of advanced communications, entertainment and home management features. It appeared that the world was quickly heading to a time in which consumers could expect much more out of their homes.
Kurt, excellent article and very timely from our perspective (I look after HomeCamera - we intend to be the most prevalent home monitoring service through a combination of ease of use, affordability, and availability). I was wondering where you see services like HomeCamera (www.homecamera.com) fit in the overall mix - clearly we need to partner with a number of companies across the hardware and access space, from the webcam and IP camera people to the ISPs and mobile operators, but, in general, do you see ease of use and affordability as being issues that could activate a whole new segment of the worldwide market? For example, activating folks who wouldn't otherwise spend hundreds of dollars on upfront expenses and tens of dollars on monthly fees, but might be happy with a perfectly usable web based service where they pay less than the cost of a latte a month?
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Is It Too Late for Homes to Get Smart?
Posted by: Kurt Scherf February 3, 2009 04:00 AMTen years ago, the “smart home” was all the rage. Almost every company in our market had a concept center or display house that showed the functionality of the digital home. I remember a visit to GTE’s offices in the Dallas area, where they had a multiroom digital home display that showed a variety of advanced communications, entertainment and home management features. It appeared that the world was quickly heading to a time in which consumers could expect much more out of their homes.
Regards,
- Varun.