iControl leverages security to automate home

The “glanceable content” can be made available in the home via a touch-screen terminal that can be mounted in a kitchen or other room. GE has developed such a device, for which iControl created the software and interfaces, Roberts said. “It becomes more of a central hub,” he said. “It becomes a portal within the home with much more functionality.”

Any cellphone can also become a mobile portal into the home, Roberts added. There is an iPhone application already developed that “allows you to do anything you can do on the home portal,” Roberts said.

IControl is looking to partner with telecom, cable or utility players that want to offer home automation services, beginning with security but ultimately including much more, Dawes said. The company is conducting field trials now and will be ready for commercial deployments as early as 2009.

A recent Insights Research study said telecom service providers are missing out on the opportunity to sell remote energy management services and could lose out altogether to utility firms.

“The utility companies we are talking to are more focused on the energy-management side, and some will move quickly,” Dawes said. “But we believe cable and telco folks will be first to move on security and home automation because they understand the value of the IP infrastructure.”

Dawes is looking at two different types of partnerships, one of which would include a third-party security company as a partner for telcos or cablecos that don’t want to get into the security business.

Previously: Part One of this series looked at AT&T’s green initiatives, while Part Two reported Callis Communications’ effort to reduce power used by VoIP gear.