The big theme at this year’s Cable Show in Washington D.C. was broadband and what solutions cable can deliver in our daily lives. A group of exhibits dubbed Broadband Nation showcased some great demos in end consumer technology and one of the standouts was Life Ware.
Your average smart home solution runs off a central panel mounted on the wall and might provide a wireless remote you can use around the house, while more advanced ones might also prove a web based interface that you can access remotely from any computer. After conducting some user studies they found that users were most comfortable using the big screen of their television and a the remote to interface with the system.
They have built an interactive television application that runs on the cable set-top-box and allows you to control and monitor all network connected smart devices in your home. From turning off the lights and closing the shades, to interfacing with smart meters to see what the specific power consumption is of your appliances.
Life Ware has its first partner in electricity provider Direct Energy to bring their home energy monitoring solution to cable providers in regions where Direct Energy sells its services. Here are some screen shots of the TV application:
In times of an economic slump the application provides some nice features such as suggestions for cutting back on energy usage and what the annual savings could be as well as information about how your household energy consumption compares to the city average.
The home automation market presents a large and growing opportunity as new homes are built and people remodel existing homes. A study conducted last year by Global Industry Analysts estimates the home automation market to reach $2.4 billion by 2010, the economic woes of the housing market might curb that number a bit.
The path to success will not be an easy one for Life Ware. Working with energy companies and cable operators can be a long and expensive endeavor and competitors such as Haier, Honeywell and Siemens producing the gear and platforms for this market as well. On their side is the green movement and cable’s need to continue to provide value added services beyond TV and broadband and their unique approach to providing a robust software platform that includes an iPhone interface to go with their iTV solution. It also doesn’t hurt that the government stimulus wants to help push smart meters nationwide.
To help navigate the biz dev gauntlet that they face Life Ware should be focusing on locking up all the smart power meter companies. By solidifying strong ties with all/most of them they have an ally to go to the power companies with and it would make the power meter companies appear to have a stronger offering. The song and dance with cable providers can happen in parallel to drum up interest in an additive offering to be bundled with the cable package.
A great power meter candidate for partnering is local player Silver Spring Networks. With a recent fundraising round of $90 million and wins overseas in Australia the company has some good momentum going for it.
