Luxul, a leading provider of enterprise-grade networking solutions for home-technology integrators, is attending its first CEDIA show as a subsidiary of Legrand, which acquired the company earlier this year.
Despite now being owned by Legrand, however, Luxul wants the world to know that it still operates independently and maintains a “position as an open platform that plays well with a wide variety of technologies and products designed for the custom installation professional,” says Luxul marketing VP Clark Roundy says. “We aren’t about owning the entire infrastructure or pigeon-holing dealers into using certain product lines. We play nicely with all IP-based technologies.”
So, for example, Sonos will be showcased at CEDIA 2016 as a key Luxul partner, despite Legrand’s ownership of NuVo, another wireless audio provider.
Likewise, Luxul is offered through the Control4 and URC dealer e-commerce sites, even though these products may compete with Legrand’s Vantage and On-Q Intuity line of home controllers. Most recently, the company announced that Savant, too, will offer Luxul home-networking products through its dealer portal.
Also at CEDIA, Luxul is announcing a partnership with Domotz that allows dealers to remotely access, monitor and fix Luxul networking gear and, more importantly, every IP device connected to it. The feat is accomplished with the Domotz Pro box for now, but eventually, “we expect to have it as an embedded solution towards the end of this year,” Roundy says.
Luxul already integrates with Domotz competitor ihiji in much the same way.
RMR from Parental Controls
A more interesting new partnership being announced at CEDIA is with a company called Router Limits that gives integrators new opportunities for recurring monthly revenue (RMR).
Router Limits provides tools for parents to monitor and manage their family’s Internet usage (or bosses to manage their employee’s usage).
Parents can use RL’s filtering tools to allow or block a variety of content types – from porn to shopping streaming content. These tools can be applied to any device on the network.
In addition, the administrator can create time-limits and schedules for Internet usage across every device and every family user, including guests on the network.
“You can limit access at certain times of the day, like when the kids are supposed to be doing homework,” says Luxul CEO Jeff Curtis. “And Mom can get reports on usage.”
Curtis says dealers will receive a commission for each activation, as well as a slice of RMR.
He explains that today’s model of charging customers for remote network monitoring and management has not proved fruitful for dealers who struggle to charge for a service that shows little tangible value.
But a service like parental controls provides highly visible value to the customer every day.
“We think it’s a better way to do RMR than network management,” Curtis says.
Luxul and Router Limits are offering a launch special: free activation through 2016, plus an “accelerated RMR program” for early-adopting dealers.
Currently, the Router Limits system is available on Luxul’s XWR-1750 router, but the technology will be incorporated into other products soon.
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