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Motorola's new Google-Ga-Ga baby monitors?

Google’s planned buy of Motorola Mobility is about patents and the war of mutual destruction in the mobile space. We get that, but it’s also about connected TV and carriers and how the convergence of broadband and data will change our lives. And so I found myself thinking about how, if Google wants to use Android as a way into the home, Motorola’s home automation, set-top box and broadband gear businesses now gives Google a platform from which to jump.

The mobile phone is poised to become our interface with the digital world, including the devices that control our lighting, in-home music and even home temperature. Don’t believe me, ask Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs or the folks at Sonos or anyone building Android or iPhone remotes for cable. Even Sanjay Jha, the CEO of Motorola Mobility has absorbed a bit of this thinking in some of his comments over the last few years.

So even as the world wonders if Google knows what it wants to do with Motorola’s home businesses, which include baby monitors, Bluetooth headsets and cable gear, it has the potential to make waves with consumers and especially with service providers.

This puts Google back in the home automation market.

Motorola Mobility clearly has been working on the home automation space for awhile. It purchased the startup 4Home last December. 4Home’s software enables home owners to access information — from digital media to energy info, home security and health data — across devices, and remotely and is used by Verizon in home automation/energy management pilots in New Jersey.

On the Google/Android side, Google has been looking to use Android as the layer to connect home devices, from connected light bulbs to other devices. So while, Google killed its separate home energy software PowerMeter earlier this year, it could end up back in the home automation game, this time with Android. And if Android is the dominant layer, Google didn’t really need PowerMeter, which was aimed at utilities. Android and Motorola’s 4Home software is aimed at carriers, a relationship Google is more familiar with, especially on the wireless side.

Wait, we’re buying our gear from Google?

However, on the wireline side Google may still have some fears to lay to rest. The company, which used to be ISPs’ favorite whipping boy (until they moved on to hating Netflix) will soon find itself owning through Motorola Mobility a large portion of the set-top box market as well as some of the gear inside the cable plants. According to Multichannel News this deal has created some strange new bedfellows in the service provider world:

In any case, the deal has shifted dynamics in the industry quite significantly: “Comcast overnight has become a huge customer of Google, and Comcast has no way out of that in the short run,” the executive said.

This sort of convergence may have been unintentional, but it’s also something that should be expected as broadband, not only brings people closer together, but also forces our networks and devices to merge. So soon Google will have not only have close relations with wireless carriers because of Android, but also wireline ISPs that have traditionally been cooler to the search giant.

Will it help wireline carriers keeps consumers in a pay TV world, or help ISPs deliver differentiated home automation services so they can forestall the process of becoming dumb pipes? Or might Google look at the unexpected businesses it picked up with its patents and dump them like I dump that insanely pink lipstick color I get whenever I get my “free gift with purchase” at the makeup counter?

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But there are still over a dozen tools out there trying to tackle this difficult market, from direct-to-consumer gadgets to more high-end services bundled with security, broadband, and solar systems. Will the startups, entrepreneurs, tech firms and investors behind these energy services succeed in a market that already has a good deal of collateral damage? Well, many more will struggle, but there could be a few breakout hits out there if they position themselves in the right way. Here are a dozen companies still vying for this market:

Home automation, security, broadband partners

Control4. Control4, founded in 2003 to provide home automation services, moved into the energy management space in summer 2009. In the energy space, the company sells wireless devices and services to utilities for home energy management, and counts customers like Nevada utility NV Energy. Utilities can use Control4′s tools to do residential demand response, which is basically asking customers to turn down their energy in various ways when the utility wants to more tightly manage the grid’s power use. Control4 has raised close to $75 million in funding from Frazier Technology Ventures’ Partner, vSpring Capitals, and Thomas Weisel Venture Partners.

iControl. iControl is the company behind Comcast’s new home security and energy management service, and has raised over $100 million from investors including Comcast Ventures (the VC arm of Comcast), Cisco, Intel’s VC arm Intel Capital, Kleiner Perkins’ iFund, and the parent company of security firm ADT. iControl says its latest round of $50 million will help the company expand its energy-based software and services, which enable home owners and utilities to be able to remotely manage lights, connected thermostats and smart appliances.

4Home. In December, telco gear giant Motorola  announced it was buying home automation and energy monitoring startup 4Home via its communications subsidiary Motorola Mobility. 4Home’s software enables home owners to access information — from digital media to energy info, home security and health data — across devices, and remotely. Verizon is using the 4Home service for its first trial of home automation and energy management.

Xanboo. AT&T bought home automation and energy player Xanboo in December. Xanboo   is a decade-old firm that was one of the original home automation players and enables home owners to monitor security, energy consumption, and digital media across devices.

EcoFactor. EcoFactor sells a service to utilities and broadband service providers (and other channel partners) that automates turning down a connected thermostat. The company shaves off energy use without the customer feeling the difference and provides a lower bill for the customer. EcoFactor says it has reached 17 percent energy savings in its trials.

Utility-focused energy services

Tendril. Tendril is the poster child for a company that has aggressively focused on reaching the home energy management market via utilities. The company sells software and devices that monitor and manage the home energy consumption of consumers, and recently scored a deal with (and an investment from) energy gear provider Siemens. Tendril has raised at least $73 million from investors including VantagePoint Venture Partners, Good Energies, and RRE Ventures.

OPower. OPower isn’t yet really in the home energy gadget or service space. Instead, it uses its software to help utilities send aggregated, detailed bills. But OPower is considering adding an energy gadget to its portfolio, the company told us. That move could put it squarely in competition with other utility-focused home energy management players like Tendril.

Silver Spring Network’s home energy tool. Smart grid network player Silver Spring Networks bought Greenbox a few years ago to be able to offer its utility customers home energy tools. So far, its energy savings in trials have been impressive.

Direct-to-consumer energy tools (some of these work with utilities, too)

PowerCost Monitor. Canadian Blue Line Innovations has started selling a $99 energy management device called the PowerCost Monitor at big box retailer Fry’s Electronics. That’s one of the lowest-cost home energy management devices we’ve seen yet that’s widely available. The PowerCost Monitor comes in two parts: a sensor and radio device which fits onto any electricity meter, and a display, which picks up the wireless signal of the home’s electricity data emitted by the sensor/radio. Blue Line Innovations was founded back in 2003, and already has over 100,000 PowerCost Monitors in the field today, mostly through utility installations. But the company told me that it has been shifting its primary focus to the consumer.

WattVision. Wattvision is a two-year-old Y-Combinator-born company that sells a bare-bones, low-cost energy management tool that it says is a snap to install on your meter and can be monitored via the web. It costs about $250 on its website, which is higher than I expected when I interviewed the company a couple of years ago. When Google shut its PowerMeter tool down, WattVision offered a $50-off coupon for the coupon code: “byepowermeter”.

TED, The Energy Detective. The TED device is made by Energy Inc, which was founded back in 2001, before energy management was a hot topic anywhere. Energy Inc. President and CEO Dolph Rodenberg told me in an interview that about 40 percent of its sales come from utilities — though declined to name its utility customers — while the majority of its sales come from the direct-to-consumer market. TED was also the first company to work with PowerMeter. Energy Inc also has backing by 3M.

AlertMe. AlertMe is a startup based in the U.K. that makes a home automation, security and energy management service. I’ve played with the company’s kit, and it has a nice design and is pretty easy to set up. AlertMe is backed by Index Ventures, Good Energies, VantagePoint Venture Partners, SET Venture Partners, and British Gas.

Images courtesy of Blue Line, Silver Spring Networks, GigaOM Events, and EcoFactor.

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Comcast rolled out the home surveillance and management service in six markets this week, and the product enables customers to monitor their home 24/7 with video, turn lights on and off and thermostats up and down, and get alerts via email or text when a window opens or something occurs. iControl Co-CEO Jim Johnson told me in an interview on Thursday that home security is first and foremost the purpose for the service, but that energy management is a secondary application for customers and is also available in all of the markets via Comcast.

Cable operators and telcos are increasingly beginning to offer home management services as a way to try to avoid becoming a dumb pipe, and also to reduce churn and add extra subscription revenues. Verizon launched a similar service on a trial basis in New Jersey in December, which included home security control and monitoring, as well as energy reading devices, smart thermostats, and smart appliance control devices, among other applications. Verizon worked with Motorola’s 4Home (a startup which it acquired in December), as well as Ingersoll-Rand for the security applications.

iControl will provide the software layer for the Xfinity-branded home service, while Comcast provides the broadband connection, a cellular company will provide a wireless link, and third-party hardware providers will make the dashboards and security gadgets. iControl has long had the strategy to white label its service and to avoid getting into the hardware market itself. Johnson says iControl also has other unannounced service provider customers in the works, too.

Over the past couple of years, broadband service providers have emerged as a potential distribution channel for home energy management products, beyond slow-moving utilities. While it’s taken these providers quite awhile to launch actual products, 2011 has emerged as a year when the companies are actually moving these services into customer’s homes. On Thursday a company called EcoFactor, which has long talked about working with broadband service providers, unveiled data about how it can save home owner customers 17 percent on their energy bills by using big data tools and hooking into connected thermostats.

The Comcast service starts at $39.95 a month and was first unveiled in Houston in mid 2010 and is now being rolled out in parts of Philadelphia; Portland, Ore.; Jacksonville and Sarasota/Naples, Fla.; Chattanooga and Nashville, Tenn.

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The move is important because Verizon’s smart home pilot — and commercial product that will come out later in 2011 — is one of the first moves from a major U.S. telco to offer energy management services, and could kick off the nascent energy management industry. To date, despite a lot of attempts by startups in the market, the home energy management space hasn’t yet taken off.

Z-Wave is a proprietary wireless technology that uses chips basically made by one vendor: Sigma Designs, which acquired Z-Wave chipmaker Zensys in 2008. The Z-Wave Alliance does have prominent members, including ADT, Black & Decker, Danfoss, Leviton and Ingersoll Rand, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have proprietary roots. In contrast the wireless standard ZigBee has tens of millions of chips and modules being made by multiple vendors for dozens of device partners.

But to date ZigBee has been a technology embraced by the power industry and utilities, instead of consumer electronics makers. Z-Wave has the lead in overall home automation products on the market, with about 250, compared to ZigBee’s 100 certified devices (these numbers are from December).

The smart home product from Verizon will include a connected thermostat, smart plugs, appliance modules, windows and door sensors, and a service gateway, all enabled by Z-Wave. The connected camera, which can be used for security applications, will use WiFi. Using this connected gear, consumers will be able to monitor and manage both their home energy consumption, and security services.

Verizon is working with 4Home, the home automation company that was recently acquired by Motorola, for its smart home trail. 4Home has long been a member of the Z-Wave alliance.

Verizon’s principle architect for its Home Monitoring and Control services, John Valdez, and Jack Eastman, Verizon product manager, told me in an interview last week that Verizon is initially focused on Z-Wave for its smart energy home service because the wireless technology is “more readily available,” than working with the utility-embraced home wireless standard ZigBee.

There are more consumer-focused and commercially available products based around Z-Wave, said the Verizon execs. But that doesn’t mean that Verizon won’t be including other wireless technologies including ZigBee in the future: “We are more than happy to integrate anything into it.”

The progress of Z-Wave in the smart energy home, is apparent in other deals, too, which we pointed out in this article for GigaOM Pro, subscription required. For example, Japanese telco NTT DoCoMo said in October it planned a Z-Wave-based home energy management offering, featuring “smart tap” power sensing devices and home routers from Sumitomo.

Smart meter makers — which have turned to ZigBee in droves — also aren’t exactly rushing to open systems to connect with home device makers, points out the Verizon execs. In fact in Verizon’s energy product it includes something it calls a “smart meter,” but not one of the ZigBee-based standard ones. Instead the Verizon energy product includes a circuit clamp, which records energy usage and connects to an interface via Z-Wave.

The Verizon execs said that they will be working closely with Sigma and the Z-Wave Alliance to push for a more open approach.

• Z-Wave: Gaining Ground on ZigBee for Home Energy Networking?
• Is the Opt-Out Model the Future of Home Energy Management
• The Developer’s Guide to Home Energy Management Apps

Image courtesy of Ytechblogs via Creative Commons license.

1. Home Energy Management. Verizon will be demonstrating its new connected home service, complete with energy management, which the telco is piloting in New Jersey starting this month. Verizon will be using a product from startup 4Home, which was recently acquired by telecom gear provider Motorola. Users will be able to tap into the new service to control and manage home devices remotely including thermostats, lights, security cameras, and locks. Will consumers respond to the energy management piece when it goes commercial? We’ll see later this year.

A company called GreenWave Reality, which was launched in June 2010 by former Cisco execs, is also touting a home energy management product that includes smart plugs, a management interface and an LED. Control4, EnergyHub, iControl, will also be at the show. In addition, CES has a panel planned around this topic.

2. The Connected Car. For the third time, Ford CEO Alan Mulally will present a CES keynote; he speaks early afternoon. It’s no coincidence that Ford also released a note Monday describing how its Ford connected Sync platform is being used in 3 million Ford cars to date, after being introduced three years ago. Ford reportedly will also show off its Ford Focus 2012 electric car.

Beyond Ford, CES has put together a panel on the connected EV – A Computer on Wheels: Meet the Electric Car – and has an entire zone dedicated to EVs called the Electric Vehicle TechZone. BYD America (the U.S. division of the Chinese giant BYD), Hyundai Motor), Audi, Ford and OnStar (GM’s connected car service) will have booths at the show.

3. More Energy-Efficient Gadgets. As Greenpeace notes in a post for us, consumer electronics makers are making some progress on making gadgets more energy-efficient. At the same time, they’re ignoring tracking the embodied energy spent while developing the product — but that’s another story. Startups, like Green Plug, seem to come out of the wood work every year for CES, showing off smarter consumption technology. I’m hoping Belkin will generate some buzz around its Conserve smart office (and home office) power gadget line. CES is also hosting a panel on reducing energy from consumer electronics.

4. Energy Storage. We can’t run our gadgets or the power grid without energy storage and batteries. Universal Power says it will show off a solar-powered portable generator called the Ecotricity ECO1800. Contour Energy systems, the Caltech spinout, will also be in attendance.

5. Wireless Power. Wireless power technology has perpetually been over hyped and under delivered. That isn’t stopping industry groups from continuing to talk about it. The Wireless Power Consortium, an industry group formed to create standards and includes Texas Instruments, Nokia, Philips, Samsung and Duracell, will be demonstrating a variety of new technologies, though many are pre-commercial.

Demonstrations include: Energizer’s  Inductive Charger and accessories for the iPhone, designed by ConvenientPower Group; the Fulton Innovation Transmitter; Leggett & Platt Helios Wireless Chargers and center console; and Texas Instruments’ bqTESLA Evaluation Kit for developing wireless power products.

6. General Smart Grid. There’s a noticeable jump in companies talking about the smart grid at CES this year. CES and Clasma Events have organized a full series of sessions with speakers like NIST’s George Arnold and Reliant Energy’s Jason Few. Cisco and power company NRG Energy will also have booths at the show.

7. Gadget Recycling. CES has teamed up with Earth911, its recycling partner for the show, and CES once again will have the Sustainable Planet TechZone. Startup Gazelle will be at CES, touting its gadget, cell phone and laptop reseller and recycling web site.

8. How Green is the Show Itself? CES says it has cut its print production over the past five years by nearly 50 percent. The show organizers also point out that CES attendees have an average of 12 meetings, which they say cuts down on airplane travel emissions (consolidating trips into one). At the same time, the researchers at Interactive Media Strategies point out that “Tthe only real green alternative is a virtual event on your computer, not a traditional in-person event in a convention center,“ and “Ssaying anything else is “the epitome of spin.”

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Image courtesy of Betsyweber.

I based the prediction back then on interviews with several startups selling into this market, as well as the broadband players themselves. Well, turns out that I was right…but about a year too early.

Now as we kick off 2011, the broadband-enabled smart energy home has finally made some real headway, which I describe in this post for GigaOM Pro (subscription required).

Milestones indicating that the telco smart energy home is becoming a reality include:

• Verizon’s January launch of its long-discussed smart home and energy management pilot in New Jersey.
• AT&T recent acquisition of Xanboo, a decade-old firm that was one of the original home automation players and enables home owners to monitor security, energy consumption, and digital media across devices.
• Telco gear provider Motorola’s recent announcement of its intent to buy up home automation and energy monitoring startup 4Home via its communications subsidiary Motorola Mobility.

Earlier this year Consert, a startup with a home energy product that connects via cellular networks, jumped onto my radar when it announced that it raised $17.7 million from Verizon Ventures (the VC arm of Verizon), phone chip company Qualcomm, utility Constellation Energy and GE Energy Financial Services. And in late 2009 home automation and energy management iControl raised $45 million in funding from cable company Comcast, Intel Capital (VC arm of the chip giant), networking heavyweight Cisco, General Electric and security firm ADT, along with traditional VCs Kleiner Perkins and Charles River Ventures.

Yes, all of these moves are still experimental, but the service providers are clearly on the path of weaving energy management into their overall smart home offerings. Now we’ll see in 2011 if consumers will buy the services.

Read more about why all of these moves are important and what the future of the smart energy home will look like in my latest article for GigaOM Pro (subscription required).

Image courtesy of awoodvine.

The pilot program, which Verizon refers to as the connected home (see video below), will be focused on what broadband can bring to the home in general, not just energy, and will also include security applications, like remotely locking doors and windows and viewing video cameras in the home from cell phones. Verizon has long shown interest in dabbling in the connected, smart home, and previously said this type of pilot would be available in 2009. Looks like 2011 is now the year it will happen.

Verizon didn’t release many details of the pilot program (like the size of program), and I’m waiting to hear back on more technical details. But Verizon did say that the connected home pilot would be available via its FiOS fiber network (FiOS is widely available in N.J.) and that users will be able to connect to their homes remotely via cell phones. Verizon has also partnered on a 3G-based home energy venture, called Consert, but no word yet on whether Consert will be involved in the connected home pilot. Update: A Verizon spokesperson says the service will be available via FiOS, as well as DSL, but won’t depend on Verizon’s cellular network. The pilot project will also only involve only “two dozen homes.”

I also don’t have many details at this point on which third-party vendors will be involved in this pilot, and who will make the energy reader, connected software and mobile apps. However, I would bet that Verizon has teamed up with Motorola’s recently-acquired 4Home, given Verizon has worked with and invested in the firm. Update: A Verizon spokesperson confirmed with me that it will be working with Motorola’s 4Home, as well as Ingersoll-Rand for the security applications.

It makes sense for Verizon to start moving on this now. Earlier this month, AT&T announced it had acquired Xanboo, a decade-old firm that was one of the original home automation players and enables home owners to monitor security, energy consumption, and digital media across devices.

Even though Verizon has finally moved on the smart energy home, don’t expect a massive commercial rollout of this product any time soon. Phone companies are as slow as molasses. Update: Verizon says this will be rolled out commercially in 2011, in other areas that have FiOS deployed.

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