Big US-based alarm and home automation powerhouse ADT has released a new smart camera home hub manufactured by LG Electronics, which incorporates Z-Wave, ZigBee, Bluetooth Smart (BLE) and Wi-Fi, as well as potential for cellular communications.
The genesis of the new camera began with a challenge from ADT CEO Naren Gursahaney to “provide some degree of ADT security and services to everybody – not just traditional customers,” according to ADT chief innovation officer Arthur Orduna in an interview with CE Pro. Gursahaney recently stated DIY presented the industry with considerable opportunities and this is what he may have had in mind, though there’s no confirmation of route to market at this point.
“We were looking at segments like the renter market,” he says. “How do we open up the total addressable market? How do we extend ADT services?
What is it they want? How are they protected? Who are those customers? How do they live?”
The answer was a home automation system in a camera form factor with most the processing taking place in the cloud.
Orduna told CE Pro the product offers an “incredibly easy install experience: open the box, take it out, plug it in, download an app, register the device and you’re good to go. The new product has a really robust automation platform.”
The system communicates with the ADT security monitoring station via the Internet, and Orduna says the company is “evaluating what it will take to provide cellular backup” for the device.
When it comes to video analytics, Orduna says ADT and LG are using “fairly well-proven” technology for motion detection, shaping and tracking. Audio analytics are still in development.
At this point there are no service terms and contracts required of the customer and pricing has not been set. For security monitoring, Orduna says he expects a plan in which users can activate monitoring in one-month increments. Pay-as-you-go security monitoring plans such as this are becoming increasingly popular in a hybrid DIY/pro world.
Nor is ADT talking about channel partners for the new product, but “our intent is to address new customer segments,” Orduna says. “We partnered with LG because we want to go big in retail and online.”
ADT new LG Camera Hub is a development that highlights the conundrum big security and home automation suppliers face when competing with the likes of Piper, Dropcam, Nest, Canary and others. When building cloud-based home automation products with open architectures, what is the route to market? Is it traditional? Retail? Or direct to the client? The pointer is the a lack of onboard storage, backup battery and SIM-based wireless comms. This reduces hardware cost at the expense of raw security potential and marks this product as direct-to-market DIY to be sold at a very skinny margin on the basis of a cloud RMR model.♦
Preliminary specs for LG/ADT smart camera:
* Out-of-the-box services bundle
* ADT Professional Monitoring & Response – no contract no term
* Video storage and retrieval
HD Camera
* 1080p
* 5 Mega-Pixel sensor
* Approx. 150-degree field-of-view
* Night vision (low-light use) with range up to 10 meters
* Motion detection
* Streaming video.
Connectivity support:
* Z-Wave
* Zigbee HA1.2
* Bluetooth LE
* Wi-Fi
* Expandable to support more
* Video/audio analytics to support motion detection
* Built-in jiggle/tamper detection
* Ambient light / temperature-humidity-pressure sensors
* Two-way audio (microphone and speaker)
* Siren.
