Control4 Aims to Be ‘OS’ of the Automated Home

Control4 is hoping to become the operating system for the home.

The manufacturer of affordable home control systems is working with CE partners to "embed the Control4 software or technology to enable other devices in the consumer electronics industry to provide control functionality," said Control4 president Glen Mella in an interview with CE Pro.

Previously, the company's automation technology was exclusive to its own hardware, which includes media servers, home theater controllers, multiroom audio systems, and a full gamut of automation controls including lighting and HVAC.

Johnson Controls, a leading building controls provider, began OEMing product from Control4 earlier this year, but the technology is largely confined to products actually created by Control4.

Industry watchers might think Sony's adoption of Control4 is analogous -- but not really. The controller is simply standard Control4 fare, bundled with Sony's NHS rack of A/V gear.

Control4 now is going a step farther, allowing third-party manufacturers to incorporate Control4's core technology into their own products.

Wouldn't it be nice, for example, if Sony ditched the Control4 box, and instead built the technology directly into Sony receivers, switchers, multiroom audio systems and related gear?

Those products conceivably then could communicate directly with Control4's own keypads and touchpanels, as well as products from other manufacturers with embedded Control4 technology.

That's the vision.

Escient Server Has Control4 Inside

So far, Control4 has at least one taker: Escient, a media server manufacturer owned by D&M.

Earlier this year, a division of D&M Europe made a cryptic announcement that the Control4 operating system would be embedded in Escient's forthcoming Vision Series audio/video servers.

The brief release reads:

DMi D&M Installation will introduce a range of Escient Multi-room network control products in the forthcoming spring.

The new products are the result of a recent collaboration between D&M and Control4 to develop a series of control products under the Escient brand that are based on the Control4 operating system.

Further information on these products will be available in due course.

When asked about the announcement during the Electronic House Expo in March, Escient representatives were quiet about the Control4 collaboration. Neither Escient nor Control4 has commented specifically about the deal.

We can assume (or I will at least) that this implementation will enable the Vision system to be operated directly by Control4's keypads and other controllers, as well as third-party devices (maybe their own?) with Control4 technology inside.

Here we go Again?

Other technology developers over the past 15 or so years have pledged to become the OS of the home. Certainly Intel and Microsoft have tried, with BeComm's Strings technology, Simple Control Protocol, Home API, plus numerous other efforts over the years.

"Microsoft Windows is a wonderful OS for the PC," Mella states, "but a PC is not necessarily the best device for running your lighting, temperature and other key systems in your home."

The industry is littered with other companies and standards bodies that had high hopes of owning the home automation architecture of the home.

AMX, with its long-ago Panja mistake, was hoping its core technology would be embedded in cable settop boxes and other mass-market appliances.

When Motorola bought Premise Systems eons ago, the cable leader expected to embed that automation technology into millions of cable boxes.

Never really happened. Same goes with Xanboo, which received a big Motorola investment in mid-2000.

Ditto for Pioneer, which tried to peddle PioneerConnect technology -- a function of its own Passport platform and Cable's OpenTV -- which would presumably be embedded in millions of Voyager cable settops.

At CES 2002, Pioneer demonstrated a home automation system based on its "open platform." Toshiba demonstrated something similar at the show. (See "CE Brands Could be HA Brands of the Future.")

Remember OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative)? Philips, Whirlpool and other big CE vendors were all over that one for a few years in early 2000.

Mediabolic (now owned by Macrovision) seemed promising for many years, but never reached its potential as the OS of the home. (Denon, a D&M company, relied heavily on Mediabolic's ONE Middleware Platform for A/V connectivity and control.)

Today, 4HomeMedia has high hopes (as did predecessor NearMedia) to run the home via third-party implementers.

And I wouldn't be surprised if Exceptional Innovation/Lifeware (heavily reliant on Web Services for Devices) and Superna have aspirations to propagate their core technology through utilities, telcos, cable and satellite providers, ISPs and other mass market providers.

Can Control4 Pull it Off?

So far, none of these efforts has led to a broadly adopted "OS for the home."

But if anyone can do it, I think Control4 has a good shot.

The reason is that the company has proved its concept with hundreds of dealers and thousands of automation installations under its belt. Not a single one of the other home-OS wannabes has come anywhere close.

A CE manufacturer would have to be nuts to embrace a connectivity and control platform that has not been proven in the field, many times over.

Control4 knows this all too well. Although the company has always aspired to be the OS of the home, Control4 understood that it needed first to create all of the products itself and establish a successful dealer base.

It appears the company is approaching critical mass, making it more likely that other CE vendors would consider the Control4 OS for their own products.

Assuming the effort succeeds, and the Control4 OS is adopted en masse by CE manufacturers, Control4 as we know it expects to continue as usual, selling its own products through dealers for custom installation.