Verizon May Launch Z-Wave Remote Monitoring and Control System from 4Home

In 2007, AT&T began offering AT&T Remote Monitor, a service similar to Verizon's (apparent) offering based on technology from Xanboo. Motorola also offered a Xanboo-based solution called HomeSight.

Neither of those really took off.

iControl, another provider of remote monitoring and control, offers a platform as rich as 4Home's but has struggled for years to get any takers among utilities and other service providers.

Finally, ADT Security bit and the two companies will roll out the iControl solution en masse later this year.

Cisco (with Linksys) has talked non-stop about the mass market for its (never-released?) Z-Wave automation gateway and remote services.

In 2006, Malachy Moynihan of Linksys discussed his company's strategic investment in Zensys, the company (now owned by Sigma) responsible for Z-Wave technology.

“When I drive away from home, I’m halfway to my destination and I’m wondering if I closed the garage doors,” says Moynihan, adding that a Z-Wave enabled Internet bridge would make it simple for him to check on the garage, and close the door if necessary. ...

Moynihan says that Linksys’ first Z-Wave-enabled devices most likely will be sold through retailers that sell home-improvement products like (Z-Wave-enabled) light switches and garage-door openers, rather than mass-market consumer-electronics. Think Home Depot more so than Best Buy, he suggests.

Moynihan also says there is a ready audience among Linksys’ current base of service-provider customers. Just as Linksys has a relationship with VoIP provider Vonage, it is not unrealistic to expect Linksys to team up with telcos and cable companies on a Z-Wave-enabled Internet offering.

Has anything actually materialized from Linksys?

And what ever became of Actiontec's zControl gateway (also using 4Home)?

The list of wanna-bes goes on and on and on.

For its part, Verizon has been working on Internet appliances since at least 2006, when the communications company launched the Verizon One, unit that combined telecom, Internet, photos and an assortment of widgets on a single touchscreen devices, with promises of automation to come.

In 2007, Verizon launched the second version of the product (you can even order pizza through it!), indicating that eventually there would be developer kits for third-party applications like automation.

The theory goes: Give users these great applications and they will switch to your service, stay with your service, and/or consume more minutes with your service.

To be sure, remote monitoring and control is a handy application and a big selling point for those who offer professional home integration services. (Try it out yourself with the HomeLogic iPhone app.)

But such services have never made it at retail.

Will a Verizon initiative fare any better?

The instruction manual on the FCC site was 36 pages long.