UPDATED 13:00 EDT / APRIL 14 2015

New router doubles as smart home hub

Almond+This week’s Smart Living roundup features the latest industry team ups nurturing the smart home market, and a router that doubles as a smart hub.

SolarCity and Nest partner up to deliver more energy savings for consumers

SolarCity, one of the largest solar energy providers in the U.S., has partnered with smart thermostat maker Nest to make saving on energy costs much easier for consumers. Starting April 13, the first 10,000 new customers in California who sign up for SolarCity will be have a free Nest Learning Thermostat installed in their home. To qualify for the promo, customers must have a Nest-compatible air conditioning system as well as agree to connect the Nest Learning Thermostat to SolarCity.

Through the partnership, SolarCity will also grant its customers access to Nest exclusive features such as Seasonal Savings, which can further cut the cost of energy consumption.

SolarCity makes it possible for consumers to have solar panels installed in their homes with no upfront payments, making it affordable for homeowners to cut down on their reliance on fuel-based energy. As for Nest, its learning thermostat has been known to help consumers save 10 to 12 percent on their heating bills and 15 percent on their cooling bills.

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Securifi’s Almond+ router-smart hub combo

Securifi has managed to simplify the smart home by fusing together two devices needed to connect smart devices: the router and the smart hub. Almond+ is the first touchscreen router that doubles as a smart hub which allows users to connect smart devices to the Internet as well as be able to communicate with one another, all controlled using a smartphone app.

Because of the touchscreen, you don’t need a computer to set Almond+ up and setup is as quick as three minutes. It has a long range of up to 5,000 sq.ft using High Power Amplifiers, has dual-band gigabit WiFi, supports ZigBee HA 1.2 and Z-Wave for home automation, a dual-core processor, and costs $199.

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Icontrol partners with Jasper to help dealers keep up with growing home automation demand

Icontrol Networks, Inc. has partnered with Jasper Technologies, Inc. to help dealers cope with the growing demand for home automation and security systems via Icontrol One, a universal solution for interactive security and home automation.

The partnership enables Icontrol One dealers to automate critical services such as system monitoring and maintenance for real-time diagnostics. This will help reduce mean time to repair as well as help Icontrol One dealers anticipate and rapidly respond to malfunctions, threats and service issues. Icontrol systems on the Jasper platform will be deployed via the AT&T mobile network in the US.

“When building our Icontrol One solution, we looked for top quality partners that would help us meet the specific needs of dealers,” said Bob Hagerty, CEO of Icontrol Networks. “Jasper’s cloud-based platform not only simplifies automation and management of new and existing Icontrol systems via the mobile network, but it makes it easy for our dealers to unlock new revenue streams and increase ROI.”


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