4home

Between the months of December and February electronics manufacturers release their latest and best innovations in whatever devices they make.  This is to capitalise on the Christmas spending and also to be a recipient of the CES Innovations award. The other reason and more so now than ever before more of us what to networked the devices in our home and the new year is a good time to make the investment. So I have made a list some of the best networking devices that have been released so far this year from the likes of Cisco, Netgear, Belkin, D-Link and many others.

AT&T has decided to get in on the home energy management action by indicating that they will be launching their own home energy management platform in the near future.  Jeffery Dygert, the company’s Executive Director of Public Policy broke the news during a panel discussion on the Broadband Breakfast Club; moderated by GigaoM reporter Katie Fehrenbacher. Jeffery said they want to offer the solution so that its customers can get more information about the energy they use within the home.

Motorola was at this year’s SCTE Show in Atlanta to discuss and show their roadmap for the connected home.  They talked about DreamGallery, an operator’s SDK (Software Development Kit) and how they are working with Shaw Communications to develop a new guide experience for Shaw’s customers based on DreamGallery. Motorola Mobility also launched the Motorola APX3000, a high density Universal Edge QAM and said they have updated some operator infrastructure systems.

The connected home has become the new technology battle ground for the electronics and software giants; with a market stand to worth tens of billons of dollars, we are on the verge of a feeding frenzy. Today Google announced plans to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion to become one of the biggest player in the connected home market. Bear in mind that it was just two months ago that Google abandon plans to continue to offer its PowerMeter service come 16 September this year. See why this acquisition is more than mobile phone and what is next?

After a successful collaboration with Verizon to implement a home monitoring and control service, Motorola said they are teaming up with Honeywell security to offer a connected home security solution to service providers. Motorola is inviting cable and telecom service providers to top into this new revenue stream; by allowing customer more than the usual telephone, broadband and television service.

Visitors to this week’s Connected Home Global Summit in London were given an overview of the soon to be launch ‘Verizon Home Monitoring and Control Service’, for its U.S. customers.  The solution was developed in conjuction with 4Home and was first debuted at CES 2011. The idea behind the services is to get more of the devices in our homes connected and using power of the cloud we will have access to these devices from anywhere and at any time.

4Home and Verizon Wireless have debut a 4G LTE connected home service at this weeks CE Show in Las Vegas. Both businesses said the service will leverage each other technologies to offer subscribers real-time remote monitoring and control of their home’s and their energy consumption. Through a simple user interface on the computer, smartphone or tablet Verizon’s customers control and monitor their home.

Motorola Mobility, has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 4Home, Inc., a developer of a patented and award-winning software and services platform that bridges the gap between the consumer and the devices that deliver services and information in today's connected home.  Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The acquisition, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close by the end of the year.

4Home today announced Verizon Investments Inc. participation in 4Home's Series-B financing round that closed in the first quarter of 2010. The investment, which was arranged through Verizon Communications Inc.'s Verizon Ventures group, assists 4Home to facilitate consumer-focused initiatives, including those underway with Verizon.

4Home and Marvell have developed a new energy management solution on the Plug Computer to compete in the home energy management market. The solution is a combination of 4Home’s connected home services software and Marvell’s integrated silicon solution. It is based on the SheevaPlug, powered by Marvell’s Sheeva CPU Technology and 4Home’s ControlPoint software.