Verizon Telematics is appealing to parents with its next-generation Hum product that adds a safety score feature and navigation, Senior Product Manager Travis Scarcliff told us on a test drive in New York Wednesday. Verizon split its Hum offerings into three tiers last month, topped by the Hum X. Hum’s Safety Score gives information on how the car is being driven -- “whether you’re braking too hard or accelerating too fast or picking up your phone,” said Scarcliff. The carrier automatically is notified if a crash occurs, he said. Active trouble codes show up in vehicle scans, he said, alerting drivers to problems. Hum X is an overhaul of the Hum platform interface and brings Wi-Fi, near real-time tracking and mapping, Scarcliff said.
Internet security is a “big deal and is underappreciated,” Control4 CEO Martin Plaehn told us at the Home Technology Specialists of America spring meeting (see news item in the March 30 issue of this publication) Thursday in Coronado, California. Security is part of the connected home’s network layer that Control4 sought to bolster when it bought network and cloud management company Pakedge last year (see 1602050037). The home automation industry is on a “journey to make ourselves more impenetrable,” Plaehn said, but that’s happening slowly. Hackers for the most part are doing it out of “peer sport,” Plaehn said. Plaehn has long maintained that anything in the home that runs on AC power or batteries will eventually be connected. OneVision Resources meanwhile is pitching the custom integrator channel on a technical support strategy that could be the answer to its long-sought but elusive recurring revenue model, banking on the so-called disconnected home. “If you consider that the connected home is a reality and that the Internet of Things is inevitable, then what’s also inevitable is the internet of broken things,” founder Joseph Kolchinsky told us at HTSA Friday. “There needs to be an entire profession around this and there needs to be a whole service model around it,” said Kolchinsky of tech support. Kolchinsky compared the tech support revenue challenge that electronics integrators face with the challenge newspapers and magazines experienced with the rise of the internet: Consumers don’t want to pay for it.
Rob Krug, senior systems engineer at internet firewall company SonicWall, showed a cartoon during a presentation on internet security at a Home Technology Specialists of America meeting: A salesman in an electronics store asked, “Can I interest you in a firewall for your toaster?” All "laughed” a few years ago, said Krug, “but now you actually need a firewall for your toaster because you want to keep the porn off your fridge.” He showed a picture of a connected refrigerator that was on display at a Home Depot and hacked to show pornography. “If you can’t keep the bad guys off of your fridge, how do you keep them out of your networks?” he asked Tuesday in Coronado, California. “It’s a problem we all face,” HTSA President Franklin Karp told us. Change passwords on a regular basis, use two-step authentication, don't use English words for passwords and use nonsensical answers to personal questions as protective measures, Krug advised: “Your favorite color can be sushi.”
Lenbrook America is exploring licensing its BluOS operating system and music management software to other audio manufacturers, CEO Dean Miller told us. Second-generation products include the Node 2, which adds Bluesound and internet streaming capability to a stereo or home theater system, and the Vault 2 ripper/hard drive. Multiroom streaming is becoming a must-have feature for contemporary audio products, Miller noted. A chip that combines a couple of high-resolution streaming platforms a la integrated circuits supporting Dolby and DTS is "probably an idea worthy of serious discussion,” he said.
In a follow-up to its 300 watch introductions Thursday, Fossil Senior Director Kyle Beste emailed us that the company is eyeing three opportunities in the connected watch space: activity trackers, touch-screen smartwatches and hybrid smartwatches “that look like a regular watch but act like a smartwatch.” Among the new (see 1703230081) are an improved user interface, third-party apps via Android Wear 2.0, Beste said. Hybrid designs allow discreet notifications of texts, emails and phone calls through haptic feedback and hand movement, said Beste. "We see more of a convergence of our analog and connected products than a shift from one to the other.”
Consumers are in the “drivers’ seat” today, said 30-plus-year NPD veteran and newly tapped CEO Karyn Schoenbart in an email Thursday. Schoenbart, most recently chief operating officer, was named CEO Wednesday (see the personals section of the March 23 issue of this publication), succeeding Tod Johnson, who became executive chairman. With consumer priorities and shopping behavior evolving, NPD will continue to meet market needs, Schoenbart said. She cited the developing consumer preference for “experiences over things,” that’s leading to a proliferation of shopping alternatives. “The good news is that there is also a wealth of data available to help marketers understand and anticipate trends,” she said. On how NPD will adjust its tracking methodology to keep up with changing consumer buying habits, Schoenbart pointed to the NPD’s "Checkout Tracking" service that monitors the same consumers over time based on information from “millions of receipts” from both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce. Checkout Tracking shows how shopping habits are changing over time and also allows NPD clients to “dig into how habits differ by demographic,” she said. That’s allowing NPD to understand the differences in shopping behavior between millennials and baby boomers, for instance. “It’s also key to understanding the shopping cadence, particularly during key times of year, like holiday,” she said. The tracking service complements NPD’s core data, she said. On possible acquisitions ahead in an industry that’s seen several mergers and acquisitions in recent years, Schoenbart said NPD is generally focused on organic growth but will look to acquisitions “when there is an opportunity to fill in gaps and strengthen our existing portfolio.” She gave as an example NPD’s recent purchase of Nielsen’s U.S. book business and videogames research provider Eedar to “broaden and deepen our expertise.” NPD provides sales tracking and analytics for more than 20 industries in addition to consumer electronics.
Fossil made good on CEO Kosta Kartsotis’ vow to add more brands in its wearables push, launching 300 connected devices for 14 brands at a jewelry fair in Basel, Switzerland, Thursday. Introductions included wearables debuts by the DKNY, Marc Jacobs, Michele, Relic and Tory Burch brands. Diesel, Emporio Armani, Fossil, Michael Kors and Misfit will branch out to new connected watch designs when they launch in fall. Touch-screen watches are powered by Android Wear 2.0 and a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor; 2.0 includes shortcuts to play music, call a ride-hailing service and download third-party apps.
Fashion is expected to bring back wearables growth after smartwatches stalled in 2016, IDC reported Monday. New vendors, emerging form factors and expanded distribution are projected to drive overall wearables shipments from 102.4 million units last year to 237.5 million in 2021. Fashionable design “will take center stage," said analyst Jitesh Ubrani, as technology companies “will be forced to step up their game and offer a wider selection of sizes, materials, and designs in order to appeal to a broader audience,” Ubrani said. Smartwatches struggled as a mass-market category on a “limited and unclear value proposition," said analyst Ramon Llamas. Smartwatches will “hyper-segment” into categories, for specialized needs such as communication, he said.
The global market for augmented- and virtual reality headsets will reach 99.4 million units in 2021, up from 10.1 million shipments in 2016, IDC reported. Analyst Ramon Llamas said AR and VR will provide immersive experiences to consume content, and content providers are developing ways to bring you-are-there concert or sports event experiences to the home, he said. Gaming on AR and VR will transport players “into outer space or the battlefield, several steps beyond what they currently experience on a PC or television screen,” Llamas said. Current VR experiences “lack the context required for real engagement Strategy Analytics said in another Thursday report. But SA said the “nascent technology ... holds huge promise.”
Not all tracks from Pandora’s free radio service will be available to play on the $10-per-month on-demand (see 1703130071) Premium service, said the Pandora.com help section. “Since we’re bound by our existing licenses to stream some of our tracks exclusively in a radio format, on-demand playback may not be available for some tracks.” The majority of songs in the collection will be eligible to be played without restrictions, said the company. Pandora trickled out the service to some starting Wednesday. Pandora Plus users will be offered a six-month trial to the on-demand service, it said in a news release.