How 4G LTE Will Change Home Control

4G LTE could be the biggest thing in home automation since the iPad, ADT and Z-Wave. The evidence was at the Verizon Mobile booth during CES 2011.

There, Verizon demonstrated how its new Home Monitoring and Control system, powered by Motorola's 4Home platform, might utilize a 4G backbone and integrate with 4G-embedded devices such as surveillance systems and home health solutions.

It is that 4G integration that could give Verizon an edge in mass-market home control – a market that is increasingly crowded by the likes of ADT today and Comcast, AT&T and other service providers in the near future.

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Gesture recognition, smart home services, energy management solutions, and multiscreen video services among top trends from 2011 CES

Parks Associates anticipates 2011 will mark the resurgence of the Smart Home concept following a series of CES announcements as well as research showing U.S. consumers value energy management as a lifestyle choice as well as a cost-saving measure.

CES 2011 featured several significant announcements for connected home systems and services, smart appliances, and broadband-enabled home monitoring services, including Verizon’s Home Monitoring Control offering, which featured applications for a web camera, lighting control, outlet modules, and a communicating thermostat. Consumers are starting to see energy-efficient products and services as a means to improve their home and personal comfort as well as for cost savings, which opens the market for a variety of solutions from utilities, service providers, and manufacturers.

Parks Associates will further explore the opportunities and implications of residential energy management at the upcoming Smart Energy Summit: Engaging the Consumer, January 24-26, in Austin, Texas.

CES 2011 also featured a variety of sophisticated gesture-recognition and multiplatform connectivity solutions.

Other key CES 2011 innovations center on solutions that link mobile and portable CE such as smartphones and tablet computers to the television so consumers can move seamlessly between platforms and even "flick" video from an iPad to an Internet-connectable TV. The use of complementary video viewing devices has significant implications on how interactive television and TV Everywhere concepts will evolve.

Evolution of the “Digital Furnace”: Residential Gateways and Set-top Boxes

New trends such as cloud computing, green living, mobile connectivity, and hybrid Internet-TV services are reshaping the role of the set-top box. Carriers, squeezed by low subscriber revenues and the demand for more features, need a home hub that offers more capability for less capital.

The Evolution of the “Digital Furnace”: Residential Gateways and Set-top Boxes session explores:

-- The evolution of features that home hubs will support
-- Support for features such as home monitoring, energy management, and health monitoring
-- Network and hardware requirements for “future-proofed” home hubs
-- The role of retail-purchased consumer electronics as compatible nodes

Participants on this panel include:
Art Lancaster, CTO, Affinegy
Christer Larsson, CEO and Co-founder, Makewave (formerly Gatespace Telematics AB); VP EMEA, OSGi Alliance
Bill Stanley, Executive Director, Operations Solutions, Telcordia
Frederic Van Durme, Head of Product Management, Thomson
Andrew Wajs, CTO, Irdeto Group, Irdeto/Cloakware

Moderator: Kurt Scherf, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Parks Associates

INTAMAC AND DSC TYCO PARTNER TO DELIVER NEW WEB BASED INTERACTIVE SERVICE

Toronto, Canada and Northampton, UK 12 May 2008 - Intamac Systems has announced a distribution agreement with DSC that will see the launch of their new web based interactive services into the North American market. The new services will be launched on the DSC stand at the International Fire and Security Exhibition in Birmingham today.

As part of the agreement, Northampton-based Intamac has built a new support platform in Toronto. This will now be used to provide monitoring and messaging services to DSC’s customers and to support the launch of a range of innovative new security products and video solutions to their dealer and central station network. This move will position the DSC and Intamac as the leaders in the interactive service market and broadband enabled products.

The Intamac platform will allow DSC to offer new IP video and security solutions to their dealer network. In addition, the platform will provide customers with web interfaces through which they can manage their clients and offer them a range of new interactive services. In addition to the benefits of a home monitoring service designed to provide timely information with video of any unexpected entry or event, consumers can remotely manage and monitor routine events in real-time that occur within the home every day.

Consumers can customise their home monitoring service to be alerted via phone, e-mail or text message to monitor events such as: children coming home safely for school; the activities of tradespeople, cleaners, nannies, au pairs or elderly relatives; alerts from water and smoke detectors. The platform also provides for the future growth with remote management and control of domestic heating and electrical systems and the devices attached to them.

“The Intamac platform allows us to offer our partners innovative new services that will help grow their business and excite the consumer” comments David Grinstead, VP Sales. “We are working to leverage the benefits of broadband and working to make it simple for our dealer network to adapt and exploit IP video and monitoring solutions.”

Kevin Meagher, CEO of Intamac adds “Our platform will allow DSC to deploy exciting new value added services at attractive price points as well as simplifying the task of installation and support. We are binging new levels of intelligence to the home and making home monitoring a must-have service. We are delighted to be working with DSC, a global leader in security products to realise the potential of this growing market.”

Parks Associates releases new report, Connected Medical Devices: Analysis and Forecasts

Parks Associates releases new report, Connected Medical Devices: Analysis and Forecasts

This report analyzes the needs for adding networking support to medical devices for home monitoring and diagnostic solutions, probe industry drivers that will help shape the industry’s growth in the future, highlight advances in silicon and biomaterial technologies, and discuss key issues that device makers and solution enablers need to address in order to clear the way for fast consumer adoption. Finally the report will profile the emerging players in this market segment.

“Networked medical devices will help transform health care delivery in a big way,” said Harry Wang, Senior Analyst, Parks Associates. “As the industry is embarking is moving toward preventive care and home-based care solutions, networking technology has spurred unique applications and opened up new opportunities for the medical device industry.”


Visit http://www.parksassociates.com/ for more information on Digital Health or Steve Harvey at steve.harvey@parksassociates.com.