Verizon (NYSE: VZ) has finally taken the covers off its long-awaited home monitoring and control service, making good on the initial trial plans and a connected home strategy it laid out during the Consumer Electronics Show last January.
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Click here for Motorola's 4Home promotional video. |
Priced at $9.99 per month, the service enables customers to remotely access, control and monitor doors, thermostat controls and appliances well as view home-energy use in near-real time--all via a smartphone, PC, FiOS TV and, eventually, a connected tablet.
Interested consumers can purchase a starter equipment package for $69.99 and can install either themselves or through a professional installer via InstallerNet.
Verizon is offering three versions of the home networking service: the home monitoring package allows users to remotely turn on and off lights and look through networked cameras; the energy control package features energy-monitoring gadgets like the Trane Z wave-enabled thermostat control; and the home monitoring and control kit offers both home- and energy-monitoring equipment.
To deliver the service, Verizon is working with a host of partners, including ActionTec, Aeon Labs and SerComm, in addition to Trane and Schlage. All of the devices and applications are then tied to the cloud via Motorola Mobility's (NYSE: MMI) 4Home software platform.
Verizon, of course, is not alone in its home monitoring and control desires. Other telecom service providers include Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), SureWest Communications (Nasdaq: SURW) and Canada's Rogers Communications (NYSE: RCI).
While home automation is still a nascent market, a new ABI Research report revealed that in 2011, there were an estimated 572,000 subscribers to telco and cable company-provided home automation services.
For more:
- see the release
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