The whole idea that security-based smart home solutions are not robust is being dispelled by Resideo. Since the company spun off from tech giant Honeywell back in the fall of 2018 to be its own standalone company, it has been pursuing an aggressive smart home strategy.
In just the past few years alone, Resideo has:
- acquired the assets of Whisker Labs energy monitoring technology
- acquired Buoy Labs smart water leak detection
- bought LifeWhere and its remote monitoring solution
- and lastly launched its AirCycle indoor air quality solution.
All of those solutions are united under the company’s single ProSeries app platform. Meanwhile, Resideo’s distribution arm, ADI, has acquired three distributors on its own: Herman Pro AV, Norfolk Wire & Electronics, and Shoreview Distribution.
The company has been so active it’s hard to keep up. So what does all this mean?
“We come at [the smart home market] from a lot of different directions,” explains Scott Harkins, vice president of sales and marketing at Resideo. “We have a security platform, first and foremost. We also have a large HVAC presence around making your home comfortable, monitoring and protecting air quality, and keeping the air clean. We have a third product category that I call the lights and our behind-the-wall solution to control the things that make your house operate every day, like your furnace or air conditioner. So those are really the three pieces of our business, and when we bring those three technologies together we can unlock a pretty cool smart home.”
Harkins details how Resideo’s recently releases Pro Series security platform is what ties it all together for the smart home. It allows not just arming and disarming of the alarm system, but also viewing of surveillance camera images, and uses Z-Wave technology to control lights, door locks, thermostat and garage doors. It is all accessible via a single app. Right now, the app doesn’t control music or video in the home.
Harkins says Resideo is focused on the comfort, access/security and lighting elements, making it a life safety device that is also the hub of the smart home that allows homeowners to add various elements over time. He calls it the “democratization of the smart home.”
“There’s no question the high-end systems are very cool, but they can be complex to remember,” he says. “I look at security and the security dealer as the democratization of the smart home … it’s for everybody, it can fit almost all budgets, and it can fit almost all homes.”
Hear much more from Harkins by watching or listening to the podcast above. Find past episodes of the CE Pro Podcast by subscribing to the CE Pro YouTube channel or our Apple and Spotify podcast feeds.