Crowdfunded Smart Home Company Oomi Plans April Launch, Late-Summer Rollout
Smart home startup Oomi is planning a late April launch, Colin Marshall, vice president-business development for parent company Fantem, told Consumer Electronics Daily Wednesday. The company, which announced its crowdfunded home automation system in January (see 1501220054), will make its three kits available via presale on Indiegogo. Oomi accessories will be available via the company's e-commerce site after the presale, and it hopes to have third-party distribution in place, including brick-and-mortar retailers, in late summer.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
The $449 Oomi starter kits are geared toward security, ambience and energy, and all are based on Oomi Cube, a hub with software and Z-Wave communications, said Marshall. The security kit comes with the Oomi Touch tablet that’s used to set up the system and a “multi sensor” that measures motion, temperature, humidity and light. The ambience kit replaces the multi sensor with an RGB spectrum LED bulb similar to the Philips Hue that can render millions of colors, said Marshall. The energy kit has a smart plug in addition to the hub and Touch tablet, said Marshall.
Oomi accessories on the near horizon include Oomi Air, an air quality sensor, and a multimedia streamer with storage capability to store local videos accessible by the Oomi Touch tablet, said Marshall. He said entertainment is a “critical component” of the smart home experience that’s largely been ignored, and a user will be able to operate an AV system from Oomi Touch via Bluetooth. The streamer plugs into an HDMI port on a TV and uses the Android-enabled Touch as an air mouse to browse content on the TV, he said.
There’s no integration with iTunes for Oomi on the current road map, said Marshall, citing uncertainty about Apple's HomeKit platform and the need to manage resources. “Until we are very clear on the specifications of where HomeKit is going to land ... we’re looking at it, but we’ll cross that bridge when Apple sets its stake in the ground,” he said. There will be iTunes and Android apps, he said, along with apps for Android Wear and Apple Watch.
Overall, Oomi downplays the use of a smartphone as a smart home controller. Oomi believes the primary controller should be a dedicated device that doesn’t double as a Web browsing device or serve another purpose. “Kids might grab somebody’s tablet or phone, so we think the controller should be for control,” he said. But once a user has left home, “we don’t expect the controller to go with them,” he said, “so their access point to the home would be through their current smart devices.”
Oomi is “filling a void” in the smart home space, said Marshall. Although one previous barrier to entry -- cost -- has largely gone away with the introductions of various low-cost do-it-yourself (DIY) systems including Insteon, Iris, Staples Connect and Wink, simplicity and ease of use issues remain, he said. “Most of the systems on the market are designed for the DIYer and are not for somebody who’s not technologically proficient,” Marshall said. Even for people who have the technical acumen, there’s the “time issue,” which Marshall said Oomi addresses with its “Tap-and-Touch” setup technology based around orange dots on Oomi products. A basic system could be set up in five minutes, he said.
Fantem has had deep roots with Z-Wave dating back to CEO Winston Cheng’s tenure with Z-Wave developer Zensys, before Sigma Designs purchased Zensys, said Marshall. “Z-Wave enables a much more open platform” than ZigBee, which has interoperability challenges due to companies’ proprietary versions of the technology, said Marshall. While Oomi products will be able to communicate with Z-Wave devices from other manufacturers, its Tap-and-Touch technology will work only with Oomi devices, he said. “We’re not going to develop every accessory that someone may want to add to a smart home system,” Marshall said. “For that they’ll have the functionality of pairing a Z-Wave product from another manufacturer to our system.” Pairing with other companies' Z-Wave devices will be a more “traditional pairing process,” he said, but users will get the benefit of access to some 1,200 compatible products.
Oomi plans to integrate with other communications protocols later on, including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Smart, said Marshall. Its priority now is to optimize the user experience for its own ecosystem, he said, and “then we’ll work on integration with other products and protocols." ZigBee integration is a “possibility,” but it hasn’t been specified in the current product cycle, he said.
The process of integration with other protocols can be “fairly extensive” because it's about more than recognizing other products, he said. "It's about whether it can communicate the right message between the devices,” he said. A product “will see a particular component, but it won’t necessarily translate the pertinent data between the device and your system,” Marshall said. “That’s generally one of the problems we’ve seen in the smart home space,” he said, attributing it to the use of proprietary systems and different levels of scripting. Making sure your system is communicating effectively "and the right message is being received by the accessory can be a fairly extensive process,” he said.
Although Oomi accessories will be available at the Indiegogo launch, the Cube hub and Touch controller won’t be available until late summer or early fall, said Marshall. The LED bulb and multi sensor will sell for roughly $50, and the multi sensor and streamer will be priced $90-$100, he said.