automation

AlertMe has signed a commercial and strategic partnership with British Gas, one the UK’s leading utility supplier last month as it went through a second round of investing, raising a total of £15 million. British Gas has invested £5.7 million for a 15.96 percent stake in AlertMe, making it a key investor along with VantagePoint Venture Partners, Index Ventures, Good Energies and SET Venture Partners. British Gas’s stake will give them a seat on the board of AlertMe.

In a move to make whole home automation a part of its standard option for new home development US home builder Holmes Home is working with Control4, the home control and automation specialist. Through the collaboration Holmes Home will offer a complete Control4 home automation system to homeowners as a standard feature in an affordable new housing development in Daybreak, a sustainable community located near Salt Lake City, Utah.

Savant Systems, an Apple-based home automation and control system has file a complaint against Crestron, also an residential and commercial building automation and control systems manufacturer,  in a Massachusetts District Court.  The complaint file by Savant claimed that Crestron has unlawfully sought to exclude Savant from the network of dealers who can purchase programmable controllers for residential and commercial automation.

Global economic recession and sharp drop in real estate market impacted the home automation sector in 2009. The luxury category, a mature segment of the market comprising solutions worth over $50,000, received the maximum impact of the turmoil. However, the market is likely to witness growth in the year 2010.

HDI Dune launches a new HD home media center for today’s connected homes. The HDI Dune Pro Blu-ray player features a new technology platform that allows it to be integrated into a connected home environment, which allows it to be monitored and controlled along with other appliances within the home.  According to HDI Dune the HDI Dune Home Technologyis a collaborative effort between them and 4Home, that allows home monitoring, media management, and control of all networked cameras, thermostats, lights, etc. from the television.

Samrthome announced that they were chosen as one of seven retailers to sell the Blue Line PowerCost Monitor WiFi Gateway.  The PowerCost Monitor™ and Energy Meter is a device that, when attached to a home’s electric meter, can read real-time power consumption, and when coupled with the new PowerCost Monitor™ WiFi Gateway, that information can then be relayed to the Microsoft Hohm online portal where it can be compiled and analyzed.

Built on Intel’s energy efficient Atom processor with more connection interfaces and software improvement, HomeSeer has released the HomeTroller S3, an upgrade to its predecessor the HomeTroller S2.  The HomeTroller S3 has positioned it self as a premiere home automation solution for home entertainment, security, appliances, lighting and HVAC.

With the growth in home control manufacturers porting Flash to their device Control4 has launched its own Flash based developers community.  The community is to complement Control4 4Store application marketplace, a new Flash-based platform to deliver applications that extends device functionality developed on the Control4 OS 2.0 platform.

The Carbon Design Group has collaborated with Artefact Group in what I called “cool design meets home energy management”. Both companies came together to create the Impact series of connected home appliances.  The series consists of the Impact Clock, Impact Refrigerator and Impact Dish Washer.  Project Impact has won a silver International Design Excellence Awards (IDEAs) for 2010 for Artefact.

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.