Icontrol Powers Smart Homes for Best Buy
IoT home hub wars begin to shape up as more companies buy their way onto the battleground.
Icontrol is ready to move beyond its cable customer base. The company has confirmed that Best Buy is using the Icontrol platform to power its new PEQ home automation service, which is launching today online and in select stores on August 31.
Blogger Dave Zatz of Zatz Not Funny uncovered details on the PEQ service last week, including product features and pricing information. Best Buy is offering the service for a $9.99 monthly fee with hardware bundles that start at $119.99. Available devices for PEQ include a smart home hub and numerous sensors, as well as a camera, thermostat, and carbon monoxide detector.
Best Buy’s entry into the smart home market puts it in competition with a host of other providers. These include fellow retailers Lowe’s and Staples, some of the largest cable and telecom operators, online and hardware giants Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), and even consumer electronics manufacturer Samsung Corp. , which purchased Internet-of-Things specialist SmartThings just last week. (See IoT Alert: Samsung Snaps Up SmartThings .)