UPDATED: This story was updated to reflect Roku's official announcement of its smart home products. 

Roku officially announced a new line of smart home products, after photos and shipping manifests featuring these gadgets were intercepted on the internet by savvy tech watchers.

On Reddit, users have found product photos for half a dozen Roku-branded smart home products, including smart light bulbs, lightstrips, electrical plugs, indoor and outdoor cameras, and a pan cam.

Roku confirmed that these “Smart Home”-branded products are exclusively available online from Walmart starting Wednesday and will be sold inside Walmart stores starting October 17.

Always-eagle-eyed tech blogger David Zatz pieced together these Reddit posts, along with data from Walmart and several shipping manifests. He determined that Roku is placing its brand name on products manufactured by smart-home hardware maker Wyze. (ZatzNotFunny.com actually uncovered two shipping manifests, which can be found here and here.)

Also read: Walmart Expands Online Shopping Relationship With Roku

The hardware seems to fit into Roku’s recent business strategy of creating a superior viewing environment for its consumers — in addition to controlling the audio with smart speakers and subwoofers, users would now have smart control of the mood lighting … and the peace of mind that comes with having the security issue solved before you tune into that new Roku Channel original series.

“We’ve been working on a whole-home operating system,” Wood told Fast Company in a recent interview. “Basically, a unified software stack that makes everything simple.” ■

Dish Network has announced OnTech Smart Services, a new direct-to-consumer unit specializing in consulting consumers on, and installing, home automation and security products.

Dish is launching the service in 11 cities: Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Francisco and St. Louis.

OnTech will help consumers with installation, set-up and education for smart home brands including Google Nest, Ring, Linksys, Roku, Yale, Polk Audio and Klipsch Audio.

Comcast has steadily built up its home automation and security business over the last five years, and Dish notes that its effort here dates back to an in-house unit in 2011 called Dish Smart Home Services. But other U.S. telecom companies are now only dipping their toes into the water.

It’s unclear as to exactly how Dish is conducting this launch, and whether it has enlisted an integration partner. Notably, Naveen Somasekhar Aradhya, director of software engineering for the new Dish unit, described in social media a “marathon” two-and-a-half-month effort to get the new group off the ground.

“OnTech connects a growing group of consumers who want the convenience of a smart home, but don’t have the time or know-how to get the most out of the latest devices,” said Nick Rossetti, senior VP of OnTech Smart Services, in a release. “Our goal is to connect people with things to make life easier and technology more accessible.”

Looking to further expand into an emerging market coveted by telecom companies including Comcast, Amazon has purchased start-up WiFi mesh gear maker eero for an undisclosed sum.

"We are incredibly impressed with the eero team and how quickly they invented a WiFi solution that makes connected devices just work,” said Dave Limp, senior VP of Amazon Devices and Services, in a statement. “We have a shared vision that the smart home experience can get even easier, and we’re committed to continue innovating on behalf of customers.”

Amazon has already infiltrated the home with a range of devices powered by its Alexa voice technology—everything from smart speakers to thermostats.

Beyond merely competing with telecom companies for the home automation market, analysts believe controlling a key piece of home WiFi infrastructure serves perhaps more sinister goals for Amazon.

“One entity might own all the devices in your home. It can form a very complete profile of you as a person in both the physical and digital world, and this is extremely concerning from a personal privacy perspective,” said Sydney Li, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told BuzzFeed. 

Dish Network said it is building Google Assistant into its Hopper family of set-top receivers, allowing customers to use their voice remotes to control smart home devices, provide weather and news updates, display photos and more in the coming months.

Dish officially made the announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Tuesday (Jan. 8).

This functionality builds on Dish’s deal to integrate Google Assistant into Hopper in July, which required users to pair their Hopper with a Google Assistant device such as speakers and phones to control their TV.

“Our customers love the convenience of voice control, so we’re expanding functionality to make it even more powerful,” said Dish vice president of product management Niraj Desai in a statement. “As a Dish subscriber, you will soon get the Google Assistant and all its incredible features – like adjusting your thermostat, managing your calendar or simply asking for the latest news – for free, right on your TV.”

Customers will be able to use their voice remote to ask the Assistant questions and see answers on the screen like weather forecasts or games scores. Users will also be able to control smart home devices, such as dimming the lights or adjusting the thermostat, and relive favorite memories by pulling up Google Photos on the TV screen – all with their voice.

Customers with a Dish voice remote and broadband-connected Hopper (all generations), Joey (all models) or Wally will have access to the Google Assistant. New Dish customers receive the voice remote with all Hopper family receivers at no extra cost; current customers without a voice remote can upgrade for $20.

In a move to stitch its smart home tech with video streaming, Amazon today introduced the Fire TV Cube, a 4K-capable streaming device that also supports the company’s voice-based Alexa technology.

The combo enables users to navigate content and apps and change channels with their voice, reducing the need for consumers to buy and install a separate Alexa-powered Echo device.

The Fire TV Cube, which broadens Amazon’s Fire TV device lineup beyond the core Fire TV box and Fire TV Streaming Stick, is slated to be released on June 21. The baseline pre-order price is $119.99 and includes the device and an IR extender cable and Ethernet adapter, though Prime members are in line for a discounted price of $89.99, plus free shipping. Those who purchase and register a Fire TV Cube by July 1 will also get a $10 credit for Prime Video.

Amazon is also pitching a Fire TV Cube/Amazon Cloud Cam bundle for $199.98.

The new entry employs eight microphones and supports smart home capabilities and content delivered on traditional Echo devices. Apps supported by the Alexa element of the Fire TV Cube include Netflix, Amazon’s own Prime Video, Hulu, ESPN, Fox Now, Showtime, Starz, PlayStation Vue, CBS All Access and NBC, among others.

Amazon said the Fire TV Cube is also compatible with set-tops from Comcast, Dish Network and DirecTV.

Amazon is introducing the new device as it starts to gain ground in the OTT device arena, a market that is still led by Roku, according to Parks Associates.

RELATED: Roku Retains Edge in Streaming Player Market

Amazon’s latest move might also push rivals such as Apple and Google to come out with streaming products that are more tightly integrated with their voice-powered platforms. Roku is also moving ahead with a strategy that enables its platform to work with a broader landscape of smart home technologies.

RELATED: Roku’s Platform Reaches Beyond the TV

Comcast has teamed with “smart” home insurance provider Hippo on a trial in Houston that, they claim, will help consumers there save up to 25% of their annual home insurance premiums via a program that leans on integrated IoT home safety devices.

For this stage of the test, which will have some linkages to Comcast’s Xfinity Home service, Comcast said it has made Hippo’s home insurance offering available to all interested residential customers in the greater Houston area. Comcast and Hippo plan to expand the offer to other Comcast service areas later this year.

Hippo currently is officially licensed and operating in California, Arizona, Texas, Illinois, Iowa, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania.

The trial announcement comes about five weeks after Comcast Ventures helped to lead a $25 million “B” round in Hippo, which was founded in 2015 and has raised about $36 million so far.

RELATED: Comcast Ventures Backs Home Insurance Tech Startup

Hippo’s aim is to focus on a large base of underinsured homes with an approach that, it claims, is both cheaper and more modern.

As part of its plan to serve what it sees as a market of underinsured homes, Hippo uses smart home technology, such as water leak sensors, to help detect problems early and, when possible, prevent damage from taking place.

RELATED: Comcast to Sell Rooftop Solar Services, Take Possible Stake in Sunrun

Per the site dedicated to the Houston pilot, Comcast Xfinity Home customers are also in line for additional “smart home discounts” for having certain home safety devices – such as monitored smoke detectors -- installed with their system and lower risks that “typically lead to insurance claims – like theft and fire.”

“This new offering can provide customers with meaningful savings on their annual home insurance premiums and enhanced home insurance coverage,” Jon Kaplowitz, managing director and GM of new businesses at Comcast, said in a statement. “By bringing together smart home devices like monitored smoke and water leak detectors with home insurance, we’re able to help customers lower their annual home insurance cost and, at the same time, help to provide protection and peace of mind for our customers’ most important assets – their home and family.”

“We’ve modernized traditional home policies to go beyond just providing coverage in the event of fire, theft, or water damage,” added Assaf Wand, CEO and co-founder of Hippo. “We’ve added equipment breakdown coverage into our policies so customers have repair and replacement protection on the things that ‘run’ their home - things like heating and air conditioning systems, hot water heaters, major appliances, electronics and more.” 

Starz, the Lionsgate-owned premium programmer, said it has integrated its app with Google Home, enabling consumers to use their voice to find and control the playback of Stars programming, including original series such as Counterpart,Power and Outlander.

The technical tie-in enables that when Google Home smart hubs are linked to Chromecast-connected devices.

The Starz app supports the programmer’s authenticated TV Everywhere offering as well as Starz’s direct-to-consumer OTT service, which sells for $8.99 per month following a free trial for new subs.

RELATED: Starz Launches OTT Subscription App

The Starz app is supported on iOS and Android mobile devices, Sony Android TV, Apple TV, Roku players and Roku TVs, Amazon Fire TV devices, Xbox One consoles, web browsers, and LG and Samsung smart TVs. 

Comcast said it has pushed ahead with an integration with Tile, a maker of connected devices that can track a person’s keys and other belongings, with its Xfinity Home and X1 TV platform and X1 voice remote. 

The integration, which ties into Comcast’s effort to drive automation into how smart home products work together on its systems, enables its customers to link their Tile accounts and likewise track their Tile devices via the TV through X1 boxes and X1 voice remotes. The agreement also ties into Comcast’s acquisition of Stringify, the Internet of Things startup. 

RELATED: Stringify Connects to Comcast’s Connected Home Vision 

Tile makes a range of Bluetooth-connected tracking devices that are also referred to as Tiles, including versions that are waterproof, can easily be attached to keychains, luggage or backpacks, as well as “slim” versions tailored for items such as purses, wallets and passports.  

Via the integration, Comcast customers can locate a misplaced item with a Tile using X1 by saying “Xfinity Home, where are my keys?,” or "Xfinity Home find my purse,” and the TV will put up a display showing the last known location and address of the Tile-connected item.  

Initially, the integration will be for Xfinity Home customers with X1 voice remotes (they can add Tiles by downloading the Xfinity Home app), but Comcast and Tile plan to expand eligibility to all Xfinity internet customers later this year.  

Comcast and Tile alluded to the partnership at a press event in January at CES, with execs there noting that Comcast would be integrating Tile with its service platforms. Tile officials also noted that the company is also working on software-based integrations of its tracking system.  

Update: In January, for example, Tile announced that Bose would embed Tile’s technology inside its SoundSport Wireless and QuietControl 30 headphones, a pilot with Samsonite slated for this spring that will test “next-generation luggage,” and an agreement to blanket the San Jose International airport with Tile access points to help find lost items. Propeller Health is also working to integrate Tile into its sensors, and Ruckus Networks (now part of Arris) has teamed up to detect Tile-enabled items via indoor and outdoor access points. 

“This is a home automation partnership that helps solve real-life problems,” Sri Solur, SVP at Comcast Cable, said in a statement. “Now, when a child arrives home from school, a parent can simply say, ‘Xfinity Home where’s Sam’s backpack?’ into their voice remote and see that it was left at school. This is just one of the many peace of mind features we are making available to our customers on our evolving home automation platform.” 

“Tile is creating a world where everyone can find everything that matters,” added Mike Farley, CEO and co-founder of Tile. “With the smart home being central to so many consumers’ lives, we are thrilled to be partnering with Comcast. Together, we are bringing greater peace of mind to Xfinity customers in their home, providing a streamlined experience for them to quickly locate their things no matter where they are.”  

Cox Communications said this week it embarked on the national rollout of a home automation as-a-service offering for its Homelife product that complements a larger offering that also includes home security services.  

The wider rollout, which will reach all Cox markets in the coming months, follows trials of home automation-only services in Tulsa, San Diego and Rhode Island.  

“We see two markets forming, a well-established and growing home security market and an emerging market who aspires to smart home living but who may not want 24/7 monitored security,” Kristine Faulkner, SVP, Cox Homelife, said in a statement. “Offering more choices in the Cox Homelife portfolio enables us to expand our reach beyond the homes that are buying home security today and establishes an umbrella for future expansion into every home.”  

Cox Homelife Automation, which will start at $19.99 per month according to FierceCable, is designed to control a range of smart home devices, including indoor/outdoor Homelife HD cameras, custom alerts and notifications, connected lights, and door locks and thermostats. Cox is backing that up with pro installs and 24/7 phone support.  

Comcast, which last year acquired a part of Icontrol that Cox has been using for its smart home services, has also been pushing hard on smart home automation that will cover its range of residential services. Cox’s new Contour-branded pay TV platform is also underpinned by an X1 syndication deal with Comcast.  

RELATED: Comcast Scales Home Automation Services to 15M Subs  

Applying a layer of security and customer support for connected smart home devices, Verizon has launched TechSure, a service for its Fios and other high speed internet customers.

Verizon is selling three tiers of service:

-TechSure ($10 a month): Includes 24/7 phone support for most devices connected to the home network, and includes help with software installation, device setup support, and troubleshooting.

-TechSure Plus ($15 a month): The above plus identity theft protection, virus protection, and parental controls from partners that include LifeLock and McAfee.

-TechSure Premium ($30 a month): Everything in TechSure Plus, as well as added protection for many connected devices in the home (excludes mobile phones, which can be covered under a Total Mobile Protection plan). Under this tier, if a TV, tablet, smart thermostat, or any other eligible gadget breaks down, Verizon will repair or replace it.

Forging a deeper connection to video-enabled smart home hubs, BET Networks has recently introduced “BET Breaks” on Amazon’s Echo Show and Echo Spot devices.

The video-optimized version of BET’s flash briefing for those devices stream video highlights about what’s trending in Black and pop culture, including breaking news, the network said.

The BET Breaks Alexa flash briefing is currently offered in the U.S., Australia, Canada and the U.K.

“We’re excited to continue working with Amazon’s Alexa and expanding our ongoing efforts to offer fans even more multiplatform opportunities to access BET premium original digital content, whenever, wherever and on whatever devices they want.” Bobby Singh, head of digital at BET Networks, said in a statement.

In a move that will shore up its own lineup of smart home products, Amazon has put up more than $1 billion to acquire Ring, a maker of connected video doorbells, cameras and security systems, Reuters reported.  

The addition of Ring’s product set will expand Amazon's business focused on Alexa-powered smart speakers, and enable the company to heat up competition with Google, which has its own A.I.-driven assistant and lineup of smart speakers and recently integrated Nest into the Google hardware team.

That retail competition also extends to Apple and its new HomePod smart speaker, and Netgear, which is spinning out Arlo, a unit that makes connected security cameras.

“Ring’s home security products and services have delighted customers since day one. We’re excited to work with this talented team and help them in their mission to keep homes safe and secure,” Amazon said in its statement to Reuters, without confirming the price it paid for Santa Monica-based Ring.

Founded in 2012, Ring has raised about $209.2 million, according to Crunchbase.

After applying blockchain techniques to TV advertising, Comcast is now forging another link to the digital trust technology – the connected home.

RELATED: Comcast Partners Up to Forge Secure ‘Blockchain’ Platform to Boost TV Ad Efficiency

Comcast hasn’t announced timing on a commercial deployment of how it’s using blockchain technology in the connected home, but its Comcast Labs is already headed downstream in terms of developing these capabilities.

Blockchain establishes a trusted way to share digital information from multiple entities while also keeping that core data protected and validated even as those records change, essentially creating a disintermediation of a chain of data ledgers via a distributed, decentralized structure. In addition to advertising, it’s also being used for cryptocurrency.

Applying blockchain in the connected home is emerging as consumers continue to deploy and attempt to automate a wide range of smart home devices, including thermostats, locks, and lights. Comcast is taking a closer look at it in the context of services like Xfinity Home, which works with Comcast’s own equipment and a growing mix of third-party smart home products, and xFi, its whole-home WiFi networking management platform.

RELATED: Comcast Scales Home Automation Services to 15M Subs

And that’s also giving rise to the need for consumers to allow friends and family to use some of those products, perhaps on a temporary basis – from the physical world this would be akin to letting a trusted friend borrow the house keys while the owner is out of town, then retrieve them when the owner returns.

RELATED: Blockchain Technology Moving Into Cable, Advertising Sectors

In the context of the smart home, users might want to enable their kids to unlock the home’s smart locks with an app, but not give them access to the home’s security cameras, or remotely change the thermostat settings. Or the user might want to let a neighbor be able to enter the garage to check on the house during a vacation, but not give them control of all the other functions of the smart home. But a deeper level of authentication and security are needed to pull that off.

“By 2020, Americans will have an average of 50 Wi-Fi-connected devices in their homes,” Noopur Davis, chief information security officer at Comcast Cable, explained in a blog post about this blockchain-facing work. “In such ultra-connected homes, there are any number of situations in which we will want friends, or family members or guests to be able to control some features of our connected homes, without giving them access to everything.”

But today’s smart home systems “don’t have a way to provide that sort of pinpoint access,” Davis added. “We can give our kids access to the whole system via an app, or keep the control to ourselves, but not pick and choose exactly what devices and services we want to make available or keep off limits.”

But to enable that level of access, the information security team of Comcast Labs has been working with the digital home engineering team of Srindhar Solur, Comcast’s SVP of product development for Xfinity Home and IoT, an exec late of HP who joined the cable op in 2016.

The resulting approach, Comcast notes, aims to put the control of the digital home in the hands of the customer, allowing them to grant, revoke and otherwise tailor access to any IoT device in a private and secure way. Comcast is developing a wide range of use-cases, starting with products such as home security cameras.

The model Comcast is developing enables the creation of a “unique digital identity for each user, which will be associated with a permission-based blockchain ledger or ‘trunk,’” explained Davis, a former exec with Intel.

“Customers can then associate individual IoT devices –‘leaves’– with their ledger and then set and revoke permissions as they see fit,” she wrote. “The beauty of this approach is that because blockchains are decentralized you can grant and revoke access dynamically from anywhere in a secure way.”

Fulfilling a rumor that surfaced about three months ago, Nest will indeed “join forces” with Google’s hardware team, Google confirmed today.

RELATED: Google May Bring Nest Back: Report 

The move to combine those teams comes about four years after Google acquired Nest, a maker of thermostats, cameras and other smart home equipment and software, in 2014 for $3.2 billion. Nest has been operating independently as part of the Other Bets unit of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, that also includes Google Fiber.

RELATED: Capex at Alphabet’s ‘Other Bets’ Continues to Fall

Update: The companies confirmed that Marwan Fawaz, the former cable industry vet, will remain CEO of Nest and will now report to Rick Osterloh, the head of Google hardware. In addition to leading Nest, Fawaz will also play a big role in the integration with Google's hardware team. TechCrunch reported earlier that Google doesn’t “anticipate any significant role reduction," while a Nest official told the site that the Nest brand will continue under the new structure.

In a blog post about the move, Osterloh touted Nest’s momentum, noting that it doubled its hardware portfolio last year and sold more devices in 2017 than the previous two years combined.

“To build on this momentum, we're excited to bring the Nest and Google Hardware teams together,” he wrote. “The goal is to supercharge Nest’s mission: to create a more thoughtful home, one that takes care of the people inside it and the world around it.”

RELATED: Altice USA Hawks Nest Smart Home Products

He said the combo will enable Google to continue to focus on combining hardware, software and services, with Google’s artificial intelligence and the company’s Assistant “at the core.”

“We’ve had a head start on collaborating since our teams already work closely together, and today we’re excited to make Nest an integral part of Google’s big bet on hardware,” Osterloh said.

That big bet also includes Google’s recent acquisition of a part of HTC that includes the team that worked with Google on its Android-powered Pixel smartphones.

The latest move also comes about four months Google introduced several new consumer products, including the Pixel 2, and updated model of the Daydream View mobile VR headset, and expansion to its Google Home ecosystem.

Netgear said its board has approved a plan to separate its Arlo business, a growing unit that currently focuses on security cameras and subscription services, through an initial public offering that’s expected to be completed in the second half of 2018.

Netgear, which battles with companies such as Nest at retail, expects Arlo to issue less than 20% of its common stock in the IPO, with Netgear to retain the remaining interest. Following the IPO, however, Netgear expects that it will distribute the shares of Arlo common stock then held by Netgear to its stockholder.

A unit called Arlo Technologies will hold the Arlo business.

Netgear also announced that it expects Matthew McRae to serve as Arlo’s CEO. McRae, the former chief technology officer and head of marketing at Vizio, joined Netgear about four months ago as SVP of strategy.

Arlo makes a lineup of wireless and mobile security cameras and subscription plans for home and business users.

In addition to a free basic home offering that includes seven days of cloud recordings and support for up to five cameras, Arlo also includes subscription plans, including a $99 per year Premier plan with 30 days of cloud recordings and support up to ten cameras, and a higher-end plan that runs $149 per year with 60 days of cloud recordings. Arlo’s subscription plans start as low as $129 per year on up to $499 per year.

Netgear announced the Arlo spin-off plan as it issued Q4 results. Results at Arlo were a bright spot in the quarter. 

Netgear said consolidated revenues for the period were $397.1 million, up 7.9%, with a GAAP net loss per diluted share of $1.02.

With net revenue broken down by segment, Netgear’s Arlo unit generated Q4 revenues of $128.5 million, up from $76.97 million in the year-ago period. By comparison its connected home segment pulled down revenues of $198.7 million, down from $214.93 million a year earlier.

On the heels of grand plans about smart home automation announced at CES, Comcast said it has added new voice commands to its X1 voice remote that enable customers to command and control several devices that work with the Xfinity Home service.

RELATED: CES 2018: Comcast Scales Home Automation Services to 15M Subs

In this phase of the program and next level of integration with IoT devices, Comcast has added a series of new voice commands that, for example, will enable customers to use their X1 voice remotes to access and control the cameras and lights that are integrated with the Xfinity Home service.  

“Starting today, customers can get specific about the camera they want to look at on the TV – just say ‘Xfinity Home, show me patio camera’,” Comcast’s Bryan Kissinger explained in this blog post. “You can also use the X1 voice remote to make a certain room brighter, or dim the lights and choose a certain hue if you have the Philips Hue connected lighting system.”

Customer can also say “Xfinity Home, I’m cold” to auto-adjust the thermostat a few degrees, or tell the system to set the thermostat to a specific temperature, or ask it if the home’s security alarm is active.

“If customers have the Nest thermostat, they can even say, ‘Xfinity Home, set Nest to Eco mode’ if they are trying to conserve energy,” Kissinger added.

Update:Comcast has deployed more than 20 million X1 voice remotes. The company confirmed that the voice commands for Xfinity Home work with its newly designed X1 voice remote as well as the previous model. Both X1 voice remote models are made by Universal Electronics.

For now, six Xfinity Home device partners have been integrated into the X1 voice commands database – the Zen thermostat, Caseta/Lutron lights, GE in-wall and plug-in switches and dimmers, the Nest thermostat, Philips Hue lights, and the Sengled Element Touch light bulb.

Earlier this month, Comcast announced that it had extended home automation services to more than 15 million customers as it works toward enabling that capability across multiple services, including X1 (TV and the X1 voice remote), xFi (WiFi), Xfinity Home and Xfinity Mobile.

Comcast’s push comes as consumers continue to buy and adopt smart home hubs, digital assistants and smart speakers.

While Comcast is taking aim at this from the service provider level, several others are taking the consumer retail angle. Some examples include Google (Google Home), Amazon (Alexa-powered devices like the Echo and Echo Dot), as well as Apple, which announced this week that its HomePod would arrive in stores on Feb. 9, with online orders opening up Friday (Jan. 26) in the U.S., UK and Australia, with sales in France and Germany slated for this spring.

Comcast Ventures and Fifth Wall led a $25 million “B” round in Hippo, a California-based home insurance technology and service startup.

Founded in 2015, Hippo has raised $36 million so far, according to Crunchbase. Hippo closed a $14 million A round in December 2016 that was led by Horizons Ventures along with help from RPM Ventures, Propel Venture Partners, GGV Capital and Pipeline Capital.

The company’s aim is to serve a large swath of underinsured homes with an approach that, it claims, is both cheaper and more modern.

Notably, the company says it uses smart home technology to help detect problems early and, when possible, prevent damage from taking place. For example, the company provides a free water leak sensor with every policy and expects to offer other home-safety products.

Comcast hasn’t announced how it might work more closely with Hippo down the line, but the company has been boosting its focus on smart home technologies and services in recent years. Its Xfinity Home service has more than 1 million subscribers.

RELATED: Comcast Scales Home Automation Services to 15M Subs

The startup holds that its policies are underwritten by insurance companies with nearly $200 billion in assets. It also claims that its policies are up to 25% cheaper to purchase, and customers can obtain quotes in as little as 60 seconds.

Hippo noted that it aims to make its insurance product available to 60% of U.S. homeowners in 2018. Per its web site, the product is currently available in three states: California, Arizona and Texas.

Hippo said the new funding will support expansion and development initiatives planned for this year, including a new customer service center in Austin, Texas, that will become the “hub for Hippo’s claims advocate concierges, along with its insurance operations teams.”

RELATED: Sunrun CEO Touts Benefits of Comcast Deal

“Hippo is reimagining homeowners insurance with a customer-centric model, built from the ground up,” Assaf Wand, Hippo’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. “The company leverages big data, like municipal building records, and innovative technology, such as satellite imagery and smart home devices, to streamline the quote and onboarding experience - quotes in under 60 seconds and sign-up in under three minutes.”

“More and more complex financial purchases are being made online, yet the insurance industry has fallen short of providing homeowners with a digitally delivered product that provides the quality of service consumers deserve,” added Sam Landman, managing director of Comcast Ventures. “We invested in Hippo because the team is executing against their vision to build a more modern, consumer-focused product with proprietary internal tools that we believe will create a sustainable operational advantage.”

Las Vegas – Adding more scale to its smart home scope, Comcast said it has extended home automation services to more than 15 million customers, and is working to enable that capability across multiple services, including X1 (TV and the X1 voice remote), xFi (WiFi), Xfinity Home and Xfinity Mobile. 

Read More: Complete coverage of #CES2018

By way of example, that move toward automation across services will enable a customer to say “Good night” into their X1 voice remote to automatically lock the home’s doors, turn off the lights, adjust thermostats and arm their home security system. 

That drive toward unified automation across those services stems strongly from Comcast’s adoption of a cloud-based Internet of Things platform from Stringify, which Comcast acquired in September 2017. That tie-in will eventually span across Comcast's product line, but for now that work is centered on Comcast's xFi Wireless Gateway (formerly known as the XB3) and the xFI Advanced Wireless gateway, a new DOCSIS 3.1-based device that used to be called the XB6. 

RELATED: Comcast Buys Stringify

“We are playing in the intersection of digital and physical coming together,” Sridhar Solur, SVP of product development for Xfinity Home and IoT, said in an interview ahead of this week’s CES in Las Vegas.

He noted that the push for scale will enable Comcast to support and integrate a massively greater number of third-party partners across its suite of products.

The acquisition of Stringify and its technology and talent has been “instrumental” in helping Comcast bring in more digital and physical parnters together and enable automation across all of them, he said.

"From there, we are moving to a world of open interconnectivity,” Solur said, adding that it will enable Comcast to push well beyond a relatively small curated set of partners for Xfinity Home (which has about 1 million subscribers) to a much broader and diversified approach that spans across multiple Comcast services as well as many more partners from the smart home sector. 

Stringify’s platform, already powering automation service for more than 500 IoT products and digital services, will soon be integrated into Xfinity’s lineup of products and services.

Comcast said that work will enable it to create a large number of rules and controls for smart home products from companies that include August, Carrier, Chamberlain, GE, Honeywell, Kwikset, Liftmaster, LIFT, Lutron, Nest, Netgear, Arlo, Philips Hue, Danalock, Sengled, SkyBell, Tile, Yale, and Zen Ecosystems, among others.

Comcast said that work will also help it to extend its partner ecosystem to other product categories such as wearables, automotive, voice assistants, and social media platforms.

“We have integrated automation as a platform…that’s what Stringify brought to the table,” Solur said.

It will also set the table to drive the concept of presence into automation, enabling the creation of rules and automation flows not just for the home, but to each individual who lives in the home, he explained.

Update: Comcast shed a bit more light on its smart home automation initiative here Wednesday morning at a press conference, noting that it will tie into a broadened “Works with Xfinity” program.

“This is where we will democratize automation and make it available to the broadest number of customers,” starting with xFi and Comcast’s latest line of gateways, Chris Satchell, Comcast’s EVP and chief product officer, said.

 “We’re going to work with any company that wants to approach us,” he added, noting that partners can decide whether to go for a shallow or deep integration. “We want to interoperate with everybody.”

One example highlighted is Comcast’s work with Tile, a company that has developed a system that tracks a person’s belongings. In addition to hardware based devices that track items like keys, Tile is also moving ahead with software-based integrations of its tracking system. Comcast will be integrating Tile with its service platforms.

Satchell suggested that these integrations are part of what’s “missing” from IoT today, as device makers usually leave it up to the consumer to figure out how to connect devices and make them work with others. “We’re going to take that stress away from the customer,” Satchell said.

Moving forward, Comcast will enable customers to create “scenes” that automate how those IoT devices work together. A “leave mode,” for example, can be made to automatically lock the home’s doors, turn down the lights and adjust the thermostat.

Satchell also offered an update on usage of xFi, the home WiFi management system that Comcast introduced in May.

About 4 million customers are using the xFi app and web site to manage their home WiFi, he said. “We’re rapidly increasing towards that 15 million addressable total number of households.”

He also shed some light on some new xFi features in the works.

Stream Check will add intelligence that tells the customer if they are getting the right streaming rate based on the capability of the end device and the speed of the connection. If it’s not getting the right speed, the system will offer tips on how to resolve it and run a retest. Stream Check will also tell the user if the connection is optimized and capable of getting SD, HD or even 4K video.

Away Mode will ensure that unknown devices can’t connect to the home WiFi network when the customer is away – on vacation, for example. It will also send the user a notification if an unknown device is trying to gain access.

Secure Connect Mode will enable users to authorize and monitor access of others that request to join the home network, and to deny access or set a time limit for access.

From a broad sense, Comcast’s work in all of these areas “is about how we see this transitioning more and more toward our portfolio being an experience,” Matt Strauss, EVP of Xfinity Services, said. “Where today we sell based on price, over time our ambition is to sell on experience…The more products and services you take from us, the better that experience." 

Las Vegas – TV maker TCL is using this week’s CES to unveil a new family of “Alto”-branded audio products, led off by a smart soundbar that will be tightly integrated with Roku’s operating system and new Roku Connect initiative.

That product, called the TCL Roku Smart Soundbar, is expected to launch in late 2018. Pricing wasn’t announced, but TCL’s soundbar is the first announced device to emerge from Roku’s Whole Home Entertainment Licensing program.

RELATED: CES 2018: Roku’s Platform Reaches Beyond the TV

TCL’s new soundbar will work with any TV with the proper input, but is optimized for Roku. The Roku Connect capability, for example, will enable the soundbar to connect to other AV devices in that ecosystem and weave in support for voice control through the coming A.I.-powered Roku Entertainment Assistant.

Among examples, the new soundbar will be capable of turning on a TCL Roku TV when asked to launch video content or stream audio even when the TV is turned off, the companies said.

TCL is a “natural fit to be the first partner to plan to build a smart soundbar under our new licensing program,” Roku CEO Anthony Wood said, in a statement.

The TCL soundbar will be compatible with other TVs or smart speakers that enter Roku’s licensing ecosystem.

Roku has not announced other OEM partners that will build products based on its new licensing initiative, but other TV makers that work with Roku include RCA, Element Electronics, Hitachi America, Sharp, Insignia (Best Buy’s in-house brand), Hisense, and Funai Electric.

TCL also announced a new line of Roku TVs that will be outfitted with Dolby Vision HDR, Roku Connect and the Roku Entertainment Assistant, including 2018 6-Series models, which will also support 4K video resolution, and screen sizes of 55 inches and 65 inches.

Home tech enthusiasts cite "peace of mind" as the main reason to invest in smart home technology.

That is according to a new Scripps Networks Interactive survey of 612 homeowners; the study also found that homeowners are often wooed to smart home tech via a gift.

Scripps said personal recommendations are the top driver of home tech buy, and that getting a tech gift "feels" like a recommendation from a friend.

The survey, drawn from Scripps's panel of self-described "home enthusiasts," was conducted in October 2017.

Almost three quarters of respondents said they "love" having the latest and greatest in home tech, like the Amazon Echo or devices from Nest. An equal percentage said they thought that home tech made them better parents.

A Nest for the New Nest
The survey found that three "life events" help prompt connected home purchases: home renovations, moving into a new home and a boost in household income.

But while homeowners want all that new gear, they don't want it advertising itself. One of the draws of the devices is that they are seamless and thus somewhat "forgettable ... in that physically and psychologically unobtrusive devices allow the household to operate in a focused and balanced manner, free of technological complication," a Scripps spokesperson said.

Demand for smart home tech is lower in the kitchen, however; there it is considered a "nice-to-have" rather than a must-have. More than a third of respondents said they were not interested in connected kitchen appliances and did not see much utility beyond the "gee whiz" factor.

The global smart home device market will increase to $31.4 billion in 2018 from $27.5 billion in 2017, and will almost double by 2022 to more than $53 billion, according to data aggregator Statistica.

Assa Abloy this week wrapped up its acquisition of August Home, a maker of smart locks and doorbells and other smart home provides and services.

Financial terms of the deal, announced in October, were not disclosed.

Assa Abloy, a maker of door opening products, including mechanical and electromechanical locking and entrance automation technology, has about 47,000 employees. The deal for August will strengthen its move into the residential smart door sector, the company said.

Assa Abloy has already been working to bring August’s Access technology (used for remote access to its smart locks) to its Yale lock platforms, and has plans for further product integrations and international channel expansion for August’s products.

Founded in 2012, by Jason Johnson and designer Yves Béhar, August has a relationship with Comcast. Its Comcast Ventures unit participated in August’s $38 million “B” round in 2015. Following a more recent $25 million “C” round, August has raised a total of $73 million, according to CrunchBase.

August’s smart locks have also been integrated with Xfinity Home, Comcast's security/smart home service.

RELATED: Comcast V.C. Backs Smart Lock Startup

Johnson, August’s former CEO, is staying with the company.

“What the August team built in delivery, doorbells and smart locks really complements what the Yale Residential team built in connected locks and digital door viewers,” Martin Huddart, managing director of Assa Abloy Americas’s US & Canadian Residential and August Group, said in a statement.

Google is considering combining Nest Labs with its hardware team, a move that could aid it in its fight against Amazon and its rival’s lineup of smart home products, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Google acquired Nest in 2014 for $3.2 billion. Nest is currently operating independently as part of the Other Bets unit of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Other Bets, a unit that also includes Google Fiber, posted Q3 2017 revenues of $302 million, up from $197 million a year earlier, and an operating loss of $812 million, narrowed from $861 million.

Google declined to comment on the WSJ story.

Nest is now led by Marwan Fawaz, a former cable industry vet who also headed up Motorola Home before it was sold to Arris in 2013.

Nest, a maker of thermostats, cameras, doorbells and other smart home products, recently inked a deal with Altice USA. Google also makes its own line of smart home products, including an expanding group of Google Home products and models hat help it to match up against the Echo, Echo Dot and other Alexa-powered smart home gear from Amazon.

RELATED: Altice USA Hawks Nest Smart Home Products

The WSJ said combining Nest and its 1,000 employees “would market a retrenchment of Alphabet’s strategy to separate its core Google internet business from a number of other units, such as its research lab and life-sciences firm.”

Combining Nest with Google’s hardware business would bring more unification with respect to the company’s smart home products and how they are marketed and sold.

WSJ also pointed out that many of Nest’s products already work with Google’s and Amazon’s A.I. platforms, and that Alphabet had also combined the supply-chain teams of Google and Nest last year.

Comcast said Xfinity Home, its smart home and security service, has extended support to three connected door locks from Kwikset.

The integration, which extends Comcast’s relationship with Kwikset, covers the SmartCode 910 Deadbolt, SmartCode 912 Deadbolt Lever and SmartCode 916 Touchscreen Deadbolt, joining the SmartCode 914 Touchpad Deadbolt. The technical tie-in enables Xfinity Home customers to remotely view the status of the locks, lock and unlock their doors, and create rules/automated commands to be notified if doors are not locked.

Xfinity Home is also set to integrate with Kwikset’s SmartCode 914 Touchpad Deadbolt, which will be sold at Xfinity stores and online at the Xfinity website.

Dan Herscovici, GM/SVP of Comcast Xfinity Home, announced the expanded partnership today during a keynote at the Smart Home Summit in Palo Alto, Calif.

Xfinity Home is also integrated with smart locks from August, which counts Comcast Ventures as an investor. Parks Associates forecasts that nearly 1 million smart door locks will be sold this year, rising to 1.7 million units by 2021.

RELATED: Comcast V.C. Backs Smart Lock Startup

Xfinity Home, which has more than 1 million subscribers, has also been integrated with several other third party vendors and products, including Nest (smart thermostats), Philips, GE, and Sengled (lighting), Chamberlain (garage door controllers), and Lutron (wireless controllers and dimmers).

RELATED: Comcast Brings ‘Scenes’ to Xfinity Home

Consumers want Internet-connected services that will take care of everyday, repetitive tasks for them and anticipate their needs with timely reminders and encouragement. They'd also like to have options to choose among in terms of service providers -- and if they get user-friendly technology that delivers on what's promised, then those companies can expect to get return business.

Those were among the lessons shared by CTAM from a new study of "connected consumers" done with the research firm Magid. The research involved focus groups of "Internet of things" early adopters and people who were interested in acquiring smart-home products. CTAM plans to release the study to members of the marketing association soon, after discussing it at a meeting in New York on Tuesday of the cable and telecommunications marketing association's Advanced Video and Insights + Analytics councils.

CTAM CEO Vicki Lins said the research pointed to opportunities for cable companies and programmers, even though the brands that consumers in the study expected to rely on for connected tech solutions were Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft. Consumers said they want a range of choices, and if cable companies can serve their consumers well and continue introducing voice-enabled search and other time-saving innovations on top of reliable broadband, then cable can win its share of their business, she said.

In August, Magid worked with more than 100 men and women on the study. They were a mix of pay-TV customers, cord cutters and cord nevers and were in 15 focus groups in three cities (Austin, Texas; San Francisco, Calif., and Alexandria, Va.). 

Early adopters were "forgiving and demanding," CTAM and Magid said, and Internet-of-Things prospects were "excited, yet hesitant." 

Google's combining of calendar and map apps to send a reminder that it's time to head out to the next destination is the kind of application consumers are looking for. "As consumers become accustomed to everything being one click or voice command away, they grow frustrated by routine tasks that could be solved more intelligently," Jill Rosengard Hill, executive VP at Magid, said in a release about the study. This leads consumers to believe that the more technology delivers in one part of their life, the more it should simplify the other parts of their life."

READ MORE: Altice USA Hawks Nest Smart Home Products

There's a lot of interest in technology that can help with caring for the elderly and physically challenged with a mix of monitoring, on-demand interaction and coaching, the study found.

Consumers aspire to have devices, platforms and brands that work together and that "get to know me" -- and they want worry-free, ubiquitous connectivity.

Based on the research, CTAM and Magid expect password sharing and tapping into unauthorized content to continue, and it's up to the affected industries to figure out how to provide simple, easy and reasonably-priced access to minimize that behavior. CTAM and Magid also published an infographic to illustrate the study results.

This article was updated to reflect in the headline that the story is based on a study, not a survey.

Fueling speculation that it’s getting ready to enter the connected speaker business, Roku recently acquired Dynastrom, a multi-room audio startup, according to Variety.

In its latest 10-Q filing, Roku disclosed that, on Sept. 6, it acquired a privately held company located in Denmark “to enhance the Company’s player product offering” for $3.5 million in cash. Roku also issued 108,332 shares to two of that company’s founders “as part of a continuing services arrangement.”

RELATED: Roku Shares Surge on Q3 Results 

Variety linked that to Denmark-based Dynastrom, citing LinkedIn data showing that its CEO and CTO and other Dynastrom employees had recently joined Roku. 

UPDATE: Anthony Wood, Roku’s CEO, confirmed the acquisition of Dynastrom during an interview on Cheddar on Friday (Nov. 10), but didn’t elaborate much on what specific plans Roku has for it.

“They’re a great team. We’re always looking for ways to build out our team, especially with consumer expertise…Audio is an important part of the TV experience.”

Dynastrom has developed AROS, an audio-streaming technology that, the company claims, uses adaptive technology that provides a high quality experience if WiFi conditions are good or bad. It also bills its solution as hardware agnostic, as its system requires only Linux.

Dynastrom’s technology “allows you to create streaming loudspeakers without the tricky and unstable characteristics of today’s systems,” the company explains in this brief video:  

Roku hasn’t detailed its plans for Dynastrom, but Varietyreported earlier that company was beefing up in the area of voice and possibly developing a new smart speaker that could compete with products such as Amazon Echo.

Diving deeper into the young IoT sector, Xfinity Home, Comcast’s smart home/security unit, has become a member of the Internet of Things Consortium (IoTC).

The IoTC isn’t a technical standards body, but is rather an association/trade group that provides a business-focused forum for large and small companies that are in the industry.

Examples of other IoTC members include Verizon, ADT, Fox, The Weather Company, Greenwave Systems, MasterCard, Cox Communications, Nielsen, T-Mobile, LG Electronics, Turner, and August, the maker of smart locks that has been integrated into Comcast’s Xfinity Home platform, and Stringify (an IoT automation startup that was acquired by Comcast earlier this year).

RELATED: Comcast Buys Stringify

Two Comcast execs are also joining IoTC as advisors -- Daniel Herscovici, GM and SVP of Xfinity Home; and Sridhar Solur, SVP of product and development for Xfinity Home.

Solur said a trade group such as the IoTC is important in part because it can take on the role of “self-regulation” in this early phase of the market while also putting large companies and startups on a platform dedicated to helping them grow their businesses.

The formation of trade groups such as the IoTC “is especially important for new industries,” he said.

“We’re still in the first few innings of what this industry will become, how large it will be, and how we will affect consumer experiences,” Herscovici said.

He said it’s important for a company like Comcast, which is focused on providing an underlying, cohesive platform with Xfinity Home that can be combined with third-party smart home products such as locks, doorbells, and garage door openers.

RELATED: Comcast’s Xfinity Home Lights Up More Device Partners

“It's important for us to work with these point solution providers to figure out how to go to market in the most compelling way,” Herscovici

Xfinity Home, which has about 1 million subscribers, is currently the lead for Comcast at the IoTC, but the company is also involved in several other IoT-facing activities. Its MachineQ unit, for example is focused on enterprise Internet of Things services.

RELATED: Comcast IoT Unit Heads Into a Dozen More Markets

In addition to the consumer side of the sector, the IoTC will also be working in other areas that include security, smart cities and B2B solutions.

“As we see how these working groups get formed, we will pull in the appropriate leaders from within Comcast to participate as needed,” Herscovici said.

Pushing more deeply into the smart home market, Altice USA announced that it is selling connected home products from Nest to its Optimum (former Cablevision Systems) and Suddenlink customers.

Billing itself as a “one-stop shop” for Optimum and Suddenlink customers who want a simplified connected home experience, Altice will sell several Nest products, including its Learning Thermostat, Thermostat E, Nest Protect smoke and CO alarm, and a range of Nest Cams.

Altice USA is already selling Nest products at select Optimum and Suddenlink retail stores, and expects to offer them across its other sales channels, including online and by phone.  Customers who buy Nest products through Altice USA will also have access to a professional installation option from the operator’s Premier Installation and Support Service.

RELATED: Altice USA Pitches Premium Service Products

Altice USA is currently selling Nest products in select Optimum and Suddenlink retail stores, with plans to offer Nest’s products to all customers across its sales channels, including all stores as well as online and by phone.

Altice USA said it also plans to offer Nest Aware, a subscription service that provides alerts and 24/7 continuous video recording for Nest Cam users.

The agreement represents a new, direct cable operator deal for Nest, which has also integrated some of its products with Comcast’s Xfinity Home platform. Nest, part of the “other bets” unit of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is led by cable industry vet Marwan Fawaz.

RELATED: Marwan Fawaz Named CEO of Nest

Suddenlink also offers smart home and security services via a partnership with Alarm.com that was formed prior to Altice’s acquisition of Suddenlink in December 2015. Altice USA has been asked if the new Nest agreement will have any effect on that offering, though, at last check, Suddenlink’s web site for its Connected Home product appears to be alive and well.

UPDATE:Altice confirmed that Suddenlink continues to offer the Connected Home product. 

RELATED: Alarm.com At Home With Suddenlink

“Altice USA is focused on providing our customers with the services and solutions that support their full digital lifestyles, and offering Nest products is our next step in delivering a more robust and differentiated product set to enable the smart home experience and meet even more of consumers’ connectivity needs,” Dexter Goei, Altice USA’s chairman and CEO, said in a statement. “We are excited to be working with Nest as we continue to reinvent and simplify the connected home experience for all of our customers - now and in the future.”

Comcast is broadening the capabilities of its Xfinity Home platform with “Scenes,” a feature that enables users to string together a set of rules and routines for when they are waking up, leaving or returning home, or heading to bed for the night.

Comcast is setting that up with a rules engine that lets customers set, adjust and coordinate connected devices, such as smart lighting, cameras and security systems, for several specific events, including: "Good morning;" "Leaving;" "Returning home;" and "Good night.”

RELATED: Comcast Flips Switch on Another Xfinity Home Partner

Customers, for example, can use the “Leaving” scene to set up rules that could turn on the security system, restart Xfinity Home’s video cameras, and adjust the thermostat.

The “Returning” scene can likewise be used to auto-disarm the security system, turn on lights and raise the temperature of the home’s smart thermostat.

RELATED: Comcast Closes Icontrol Deal

All four Scenes can be customized with the Xfinity Home app for iOS or Android, and each one can be activated manually or scheduled to occur at a specific time of day, Neal Foster, vice president of product management at Xfinity Home, explained in this blog post.

“We’ll continue to enhance these features and add even more capabilities over time,” Foster noted.

Comcast announced in April that it was approaching 1 million Xfinity Home subscribers.

As home security and smart home services become a new cornerstone for cable operators, customer demands are causing vendors to rethink and expand how they support their MSO partners.

Read More: Complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2017

For Universal Electronics, a company known for making remote controls, its aggressive push into the smart home sector has been followed with the recent launch of call center support services that are tailored for helping consumers find answers and troubleshoot their connected home devices.

Universal Electronics, which acquired smart home product specialist Ecolink Intelligent Technology in 2015 and counts Comcast as a key customer, said consumer demand in that sector has led to a 30% increase in home security call volume at its Technical Support Services (TSS) center over a period of about six months.

Universal Electronics, which will show its latest wares at this week’s SCTE•ISBE Cable-Tec Expo in Denver, has been able to generate some serious scale from those businesses. The company, for example, buys chips in quantities of about 100 million per year using technology that works with both its remote controls as well as smart home devices, according to Lou Hughes, Universal Electronics’s chief operating officer.

In addition to teaming with Comcast on certain types of smart home products and sensors, such as door contacts and motion sensors and keypads, Universal Electronics also supports the Samsung SmartThings ecosystem, works with several do-it-your-self smart home companies, and sells its own products under the Ecolink brand at retail outlets such as Amazon.

RELATED: UEI, Comcast Sign Warrants Agreement

“All of that work has required us to support [smart home] devices out in the marketplace,” he said, noting that some smart home products “aren’t trivial to install.”

To support its growing smart home businesses, Universal Electronics has been training its people to become experts in that area so they are knowledgeable about wireless networking, how to pair devices, and relay that information to consumers in plain English.

Universal Electronics also brings this support capability to its cable operator customers, typically providing a second tier of help in a subcontracted role. For instance, if a consumer contacted an MSO about a smart home-related technical issue that the rep couldn’t figure out, that customer might be relayed to a Universal Electronics representative to get it resolved.

Comcast has acquired Stringify, an Internet of Things tech startup that helped the cable operator develop xFi, a cloud-based home WiFi management platform that was launched earlier this year.

RELATED: Comcast Tacks On xFi Features

Stringify announced the acquisition via a Sept. 18 blog post, noting that the company would be updating its terms of service soon to signal that Stringify service data will be transitioned to Comcast.

Founded in 2014, Stringify provides a cloud-powered automation service for the IoT, and has introduced apps for iOS and Android. Stringify said it works with 500-plus products and services, including those from Nest (part of Google), Philips Hue, Ring, Amazon Alexa, Honeywell, Insteon and Netgear, among others.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Stringify raised a $6.3 million seed round led by Artis Ventures, according to Crunchbase.

Related: Time to Own the Home

“Comcast is a perfect fit for Stringify,” the IoT provider explained in the blog post. "With xFi and Xfinity Home, Comcast is delivering elegant, powerful IoT and automation experiences to millions of customers. The Comcast team shares our passion for using technology to solve real-world problems, and to connect the world in meaningful ways.”

Elsewhere on the xFi front, Comcast made in investment in Plume, a startup that is helping Comcast develop a lineup of WiFi “pods” that work in tandem with broadband gateways to extend wireless signals to all corners of a consumer’s home.

RELATED: Comcast Leads $37.5M Investment in Plume

A batch of programmers said they have upgraded their “skills” for the Amazon Echo Show, the new Alexa-powered home hub that features a touch screen and sells for $229.99.

Here’s a snapshot of how programmers are supporting the new product:

-CNBC’s upgrade features a “video flash briefing” tailored for the new platform that features business and market news, updates on stocks, futures and indexes, as well as Cramer  Remix, the digital video series from Mad Money’s  Jim Cramer. Users with the CNBC skill activated can access the latter by saying, “Alexa, ask CNBC for the Cramer Remix,” or “Watch the Cramer Remix.”

-CNN is also updating its skill for the Amazon Echo, Tap and Dot with its own flash briefings, including video clips from CNN soon after they air on the network, updates from New Day anchors Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Caerota, along with curated news. Users can tap in by saying, “ “Alexa, Open CNN.” CNN said it’s also adding a new voice to audio news with CNN Politics reporter and editor-at-large, Chris Cillizza.

-Food Network updated skill for the Echo Show adds a visual component that lets users browse through Alex’s top picks based on searches, select recipes and watch a video of the recipe being prepared. Users also have the option to have the full recipe emailed to them.

Update: 

-Bloomberg Media has also launched an enhanced skill for that features visuals and video content, including live feeds from Bloomberg TV, U.S. stock prices and world market indices in chart form, market summary videos and Bloomberg flash briefings.

Amid the slew of announcements Apple made Monday at its Worldwide Developers Conference, the CE giant announced bigger plays into emerging sectors that included augmented reality, virtual reality and the smart home.

On the VR front, a new line of iMacs will have enough pop to support virtual reality services and applications. That optimized VR software for the new macOS, called High Sierra (set to ship this fall following a beta period), will work with the Valve, Unity and Unreal engines.

RELATED: Apple TV Opens Door to Amazon Prime Video

Looking to take augmented reality to the next level, Apple introduced a new core technology called ARKit that will use the capabilities of the iPhone to identify surfaces such as a table and to let users add an object such as a lamp, coffee cup or vase.

RELATED: Facebook Dives Deeper Into AR

The ARKit, to be supported in iOS 11, to be released this fall, uses the phone’s sensors and cameras to find those surfaces and to estimate ambient lighting. Hundreds of millions of iPhones and iPads will be capable of using ARKit, making it “the largest AR platform in the world,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of software engineering, claimed, seemingly taking aim at Tango, Google’s AR platform for certain Android devices.

Wingnut AR, Peter Jackson’s new production company dedicated to augmented reality, was on hand to demo a real-time battle game/experience that will be offered in the Apple App Store later this year.

In the smart home arena, Apple will be looking to grapple with products such as Google Home and Amazon Echo with the launch later this year of the HomePod, a high-end, connected home speaker that will sell for $349.

HomePod, at less than seven inches tall, is covered in a 3D mesh fabric that hides a seven-array beamforming tweeter pack, a four-inch woofer and is controlled by the A8, the same chip used in the iPhone.

In addition to working with Apple Music, HomePod also has a six-microphone array that works with Siri, and is made to work with HomeKit devices.

HomePod, available in white and space gray, will start shipping this December in the U.S., U.K., and Australia, then follow to other parts of the globe.

Apple also trotted out a new line of the iPad Pro, the higher-end, business-class version of its tablet platform, supporting a full-screen keyboard and 30-plus languages, as well as HDR video.

A new feature called “ProMotion” will double the max refresh rate to 120Hz, enabling smoother and more response to video and other content.

A 10.5-inch version starts at $649, while the 12.9-inch model starts at $799. Both will start shipping next week and will support iOS 11 when the new operating system is released this fall.

Adding another third-party to the Xfinity Home product mix, Comcast said it has secured a partnership with Philips Lighting.

The agreement enables Xfinity Home subs to manage and control their Philips Hue connected lighting system via the Xfinity Home mobile app. Those customers can also create rules, or automated commands, that sync their lights with Xfinity Home’s security and smart home capabilities. For example, they can create a rule that turns the lights on or off when they arm their security system, or turn the lights on when away at night to make the home appear occupied.

Comcast is also working to let Xfinity Home customers control their Philips Hue connected lighting system using the X1 voice remote.

Philips Hue products join other third-party products that have been integrated via the Works with Xfinity Home initiative.  Others include Jasco and Sengled (lighting), August (smart locks), Chamberlain (garage controllers), Lutron (wireless controllers and dimmers), and Nest (thermostats).

RELATED: Comcast’s Xfinity Home Lights Up More Device Partners

Comcast, which recently closed an acquisition of a big piece of Icontrol, announced in April that it signed on nearly 1 million Xfinity Home subscribers.

RELATED: Comcast Closes Icontrol Deal

“Our partnership with Philips Lighting advances our commitment to bring our customers best-in-class devices they can trust and easily manage on one, integrated platform – the Xfinity Home platform,” Daniel Herscovici, SVP and GM of Xfinity Home, said in a statement. “With the Philips Hue family of products, our customers can customize their lighting according to their own needs and daily routines. They can also set up simple automated commands, such as turning on the hallway lights when they enter the home and disarm the system.” 

Universal Electronics, a maker of remote control and smart home technologies, said it’s diving deeper into the IoT pool by putting up $9 million in cash to acquire “certain assets” of RCS Technology, a maker of energy management and control products for the residential, commercial and hospitality sectors.

UEI said the deal include RCS’s product lines, inventory, intellectual property, engineering and development resources, sales and distribution relationships, and other assets used in its communication and smart thermostat business.

In addition to the $9 million up front, the financial terms include other incentive-based cash consideration to be paid over the next five years, they said. UEI plans to operate RCS as a wholly-owned subsidiary and market the energy monitoring, thermostat, sensor products and services under RCS brands.

UEI, a key supplier to Comcast and other video and smart home service providers, said the deal will broaden its portfolio of home sensing, monitoring and control products by adding programmable communicating thermostats, advanced HVAC controls, and in-home displays and user interfaces.

RELATED: UEI, Comcast Sign Warrants Agreement

RCS’s customers include ADT and Nexia Home Automation Systems. Its portfolio uses a variety of connectivity technologies, including Z-Wave, ZigBee and WiFi.

“RCS represents another important step toward our goal to be the leader in control and sensing technologies for the smart home,” Paul Arling, UEI's chairman and CEO, said in a statement. “This acquisition builds on our existing business with original equipment manufacturers in HVAC, giving us an expanded capability in delivering traditional and wireless thermostats, room air controllers, and wireless remotes to customers such as Daikin, Fujitsu and Panasonic.  The addition of RCS brings new smart thermostat, sensing and monitoring products to our international market through our global sales, manufacturing, and distribution channels.”

Comcast still hasn’t updated sub figures for Xfinity Home, its home security and automation service, for awhile (the official number has been 500,000-plus since mid-2015), but the company is starting to open up the marketing spigot with a new series of spots for TV and online.

Comcast, which recently closed a deal to acquire an important piece of Icontrol, will debut its latest Xfinity Home spot on Monday, April 10.

That 30-second ad, “Chores,” focuses on home safety and the platform’s support for real-time access to home cameras and 24/7 monitoring, albeit with a comedic spin:

Comcast said the above spot is part of a series of six that were developed by the company and its marketing agency partner, Digitas.

Below are two other spots, already on-air, that are tied to the campaign.

“Touch”:

 “Bedtime”:

Smart home and home security specialist Alarm.com said it had 5 million residential and business subscribers as of March 15, a revised figure that includes Alarm.com’s recent acquisition of Icontrol’s Connect and Piper businesses.

The deal, which closed March 8, also expands Alarm.com’s relationship with ADT, whose Pulse service is based on the Z-wave-based Connect platform. Comcast acquired the Icontrol’s ZigBee-based Converged platform. 

RELATED: Comcast, Alarm.com Divvy Up Icontrol Networks

Alarm.com will serve as “the exclusive provider of services for ADT's professionally installed residential interactive security automation and video offerings for a period of up to five years, subject to certain performance conditions and carve outs,” Steve Trundle, Alarm.com’s CEO, said Wednesday on the company’s Q4 earnings call.

RELATED: Alarm.com to Ratchet Up Pursuit of ISP, Cable Market 

He said Alarm.com has already begun to integrate Icontrol into its own operations.

Trundle also spent some time explaining how the Connect business model differs from Alarm.com’s legacy business. Connect software, he said, is deployed and operated by the service provider in their own network operations center, meaning that they are on the hook to buy their own server capacity and cellular connectivity, and to manage the deployment with their own network operations personal. Connect charges a monthly per subscriber fee for its software, as Alarm.com does. However, Alarm.com’s historic turnkey business, largely focused on thousands of channel partners, includes all of those aforementioned services in its fee.

Going forward, Alarm.com will take direction from customers if they want to put more emphasis on Alarm.com’s legacy platform or put more of it into the Connect product.

Trundle said Alarm.com is "open minded” about the Piper retail/DIY smart home business. DIY has been a “good business for us,” he said. “We are probably not as conditioned to believe that retail DIY is a great place for us to be. So we're going to look at that carefully and look at the capabilities of the product on the Piper side and see if there's a fit for that product that's more synergistic with our traditional channel strategy.”

Alarm.com posted total revenues of $69.8 million, up 23% versus the year-ago quarter. SaaS and license revenue grew 21%, to $46.9 million.

For 2017, Alarm.com expects revenues of $322 million to $325 million.

Alarm.com traditionally has focused its business on working with thousands of independent home security dealers, but the company plans to move more aggressively with a strategy centered on partnerships with cable operators and other ISPs now that it has sealed up a deal for a piece of Icontrol.

RELATED: Comcast Closes Icontrol Deal

“We think we’ll be a very relevant party for the MSO channel and the telecom channel,” Dan Kerzner, Alarm.com’s chief product officer, said.

Comcast acquired Icontrol’s ZigBee-based “Converge” platform, already used for Xfinity Home and for some smart home and security services used by several other cable operators. Alarm.com bought Icontrol’s Z-wave-facing Connect platform, which is used by home security giant ADT and a wide range of dealers. Alarm.com also bought Piper, the Ottawa, Canada-based piece of Icontrol that makes and sells a retail do-it-yourself smart home platform.

RELATED: Comcast, Alarm.com Divvy Up Icontrol Networks

Alarm.com, which works with about 6,000 dealers, had about 2.6 million properties using its service/platform at the end of 2015, and ADT’s web site currently says it has 6.5 million total customers.  Alarm.com plans to announced a revised, combined number when it reports quarterly results on Wednesday (March 15).

Alarm.com isn’t new to the MSO/ISP sector, as it does count Suddenlink (now part of Altice USA) among its known cable operator partners, but does plan to apply more resources to that market now that it has the Icontrol deal wrapped up.

RELATED: Alarm.com at Home With Suddenlink

“We're in active discussions with a variety of them [cable operators],” Kerzner said.

He and Alarm.com will have plenty of competition.

AT&T and Verizon already have their own home security and home automation products. Comcast, meanwhile, has already signaled that it will offer wholesale services to new customers in the U.S. and abroad. 

Cox Communications, Rogers Communications, and the systems formerly with Time Warner Cable and Bright House already base their respective smart home offerings on the piece of Icontrol that Comcast acquired. Among them, Rogers has already announced that, in addition to licensing X1 for a new IPTV service, it will also adopt Comcast’s new “Digital Home” product. Cox is also licensing X1 for its new Contour video service.

RELATED: Rogers Tightens Technology Ties to Comcast

Charter has not announced a formal going-forward product plan with respect to home security and home automation. Charter is still supporting TWC and Bright House customers that use the legacy platform, but said last June that it was assessing that part of its business.

The overall market is small but growing. The penetration of smart home systems will reach 3% of global households by 2018, and 7% by 2025, according to a recent forecast from IHS Markit, which also sees professionally monitored smart homes exceeding non-connected, traditionally monitored security systems in 2023.

Kerzner said Alarm.com’s acquisition will enable it to scale its platform and the R&D behind it, as it will combine development teams in Virginia, Denver, Florida and Boston, along with a presence in Silicon Valley.

According to this SEC filing, Alarm.com’s total cash consideration for its piece of Icontrol was $148.5 million.

The filing also disclosed that Alarm.com and Honeywell International had entered an agreement to settle a lawsuit filed against Alarm.com last month that tried to block the proposed deal, alleging that it violated antitrust law because the combined company would hold a 70% share of the “market for the provision of  Remote Services for dealer installed security systems.”  Terms of the settlement, which took effect after the closing of the Icontrol deal, were not disclosed. 

Rogers Communications intends to roll out an IPTV service that relies on Comcast’s X1 platform in early 2018, but the technology ties between those operators is going much deeper than that.

RELATED: Rogers to Tap Comcast’s X1 Platform for IPTV Shift

As part of its Q4 results, the Canadian service operator will also use a range of CPE designed by Comcast, including DOCSIS 3.1 gateways, WiFi extenders, a new class of wireless set-tops and technology that enables the operator to send video to third-party companion devices, such as tablets and smartphones.

The plan also calls for Rogers to adopt Comcast’s new Digital Home solution, which Comcast announced earlier this month around CES and expects to deploy by the end of Q1 2017.  That cloud-powered platform will allow the operator to centralize and organize their networks via millions of in-home broadband gateways. Rogers, along with Cox and Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks (now part of Charter Communications) already sells a home security service powered by Icontrol (Comcast and Alarm.com are in the process of acquiring different pieces of Icontrol).

CES 2017: Comcast Aims to Smarten Up, Simplify the Home Network

Rogers also said it plans to debut a new advanced DOCSIS 3.1 WiFi gateway by mid-2017. Rogers has begun to offer a D3.1 gateway from Hitron. Comcast, meanwhile, has tapped Arris and Technicolor to product a new D3.1 gateway called the XB6.

RELATED: Comcast Taps Arris, Technicolor for ‘XB6’ Gateways: Sources

Rogers expects to launch its version of Digital Home along with the new IPTV product in early 2018, Tony Staffieri, Rogers’s CFO, said Thursday on the company’s earnings call.

As for its coming deployment of X1, Rogers hopes to generate the kind of results Comcast is getting with it in the U.S. and ride the scale and R&D afforded by the platform.

“We have seen the success X1 has had for Comcast in the U.S. market, including improving TV subscriber additions, lowering churn, increasing ARPU for excellent users, but most importantly, delivering a better customer experience,” Staffieri said. “Our customers will benefit from Comcast’s scale and substantial R&D investments.”

He also said Rogers expects its cable video economics to benefit from the variable opex model offered via its Comcast agreement, “which will limit cable video capex to more success-based investment.”

Staffieri also characterized the execution  risk of X1 as “moderate to low.”

“This is a proven product,” he said, noting that the ecosystem for the platform is relatively small.  “Others have done it in terms of licensing the product.”

Shaw Communications and Cox Communications have already rolled out next-gen video products that rely on X1.

“We think there is a real opportunity for growth,” Staffieri said when Rogers combines its new X1-powered video product with its own Internet products.

During the quarter,  Rogers lost 13,000 video subs, narrowed from a year-ago loss of 24,000, for a total of 1.82 million. Rogers lost 76,000 video subs in all of 2016.

The MSO added 30,000 high-speed Internet subs, expanding to a total of 2.14 million.

Rogers also disclosed that its Q4 net income was impacted by a $484 million charge tied to its discontinued investment in the operator’s own IPTV product, which is dumped in favor of the new X1-hosted approach with Comcast.

Rogers also noted that it intends to hire Joseph Natale as president and CEO effective July 2017.  Alan Horn is currently serving as Rogers’s interim president and CEO.

Rogers announced last October that Guy Laurence had stepped down and that Telus Communications chief Joseph Natale would be stepping into that role eventually.

LAS VEGAS — The emergence of the Internet of Things has quickly been followed by the smartness of everything. As a key theme here at CES last week, it is clearly no longer enough to simply connect everything to the Internet. Those Internet-connected things must also work in concert with a tightly integrated and secure platform that can be managed together, rather than operate within their own technology silos.

Playing into that that trend is the emergence of voice-controlled technologies from companies such as Amazon and Google that are seemingly being built into everything from smart home hubs, connected televisions to over-the-top devices, including Shield TV, a new streaming box from Nvidia that runs on Android TV.

“The next computer interface is voice” as the technology hits an inflection point and makes the leap from “theoretical to practical,” Dr. Shawn DuBravac, the Consumer Technology Association’s chief economist, said last week in a presentation that outlined key tech trends and revenue forecasts for a wide array of product categories (see sidebar).

While the home is shaping up to be the battleground, cable operators and other service providers are jostling to position themselves as the aggregation and management point of this emerging class of smart-home services, which have already boosted profits.

It’s shaping up to be a good place to seek growth, as consumer adoption of smart-home technologies and services is clearly on the rise.

About 26% of U.S. broadband homes now have a smart home device, up from 19% at the end of 2015, according to a Q4 2016 national survey conducted by Parks Associates. The research firm also found that 11% of U.S. broadband homes currently employ a smart thermostat, and 5% own a smart plug/adapter module.

And while retail will be playing a big role in the smart home, the trend is toward aggregated and integrated ecosystems that support an array of smart home products, an area of focus for service providers such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon Communications.

Building partnerships with device makers and stitching them into an integrated ecosystem will help smart home products and services break into the consumer mainstream and create scale, according to Daniel Herscovici, senior vice president and general manager of Xfinity Home, Comcast’s home security and automation service, who spoke at the Parks-run Connections Summit here last week.

Consumers now have a “premium expectation” that smart home devices will work together, agreed François Girodolle, head of European developer relations for Nest Labs, the smart home product unit owned by Google.

Xfinity Home is pushing hard in that direction with a curated certification program for third-party device makers that aims to support two to three “best of breed” suppliers in several key categories and then stand behind them with customer, tech and installation support.

Herscovici said he expects other large smart-home ecosystems to follow Comcast’s lead, but stressed that building partnerships with third-party suppliers isn’t without its challenges.

Notably, Comcast must also keep pace with new iterations of products and firmware updates coming from partners. Getting partners to be “disciplined” with those technical changes has become a greater challenge as the ecosystem grows, he said.

Carrier, the heating, ventilation and air conditioning giant, has also been looking to help its customers optimize and automate their home climate systems and continues to be interested in lending its expertise to smart home ecosystems and aggregators such as Comcast, Apple and Google.

But Carrier, which relies on complex HVAC systems that utilize their own algorithms, gets concerned when others are injecting sensors to control HVAC systems without a well-heeled partnership, Matthew Pine, Carrier’s vice president of marketing, said.

“In the first wave of integration … the deeper layer is what concerns me,” Pine said, noting that Carrier sometimes gets customer calls because of issues stemming from smart home systems that are architected in a different way than Carrier’s.

Comcast, meanwhile, has been looking beyond Xfinity Home with its smart home strategy. Last week, it introduced a broader “Digital Home” initiative run by an integrated, cloud-powered platform that will help millions of customers smarten up, organize and simplify their home networks.

Comcast expects the new whole-home platform to go live by the end of Q1 2017, with a goal of having it supported in 15 million gateways by the end of the year. It will operate via a new app for mobile devices or a Web portal and be integrated with the X1 voice remote.

“To all of us, the Internet doesn’t stop at the wall,” Chris Satchell, Comcast’s executive vice president and chief product officer, said. “It has to be ubiquitous and it has to be smart and be able to connect to all of those devices.”

Emerging Tech Fills the CE Gap

LAS VEGAS — Maturing technology and product categories, such as smartphones, tablets, TVs and PCs, contribute about half of total CE industry revenue, and many of those segments are in decline.

The good news for the industry is that emerging categories such as virtual reality, smart-home technology and services, and TVs with next-gen 4K and High Dynamic Range (HDR) are filling the gap. The U.S. consumer technology industry is forecast to produce $292 billion in retail revenue this year, driven by emerging categories, according to the Consumer Technology Association’s latest U.S. Consumer Technology Sales and Forecasts report.

Here’s a glance at how some of the newer categories are expected to perform:

Virtual Reality: Sales of VR headsets are expected to reach 2.5 million units this year, up 79% versus 2016, while driving $660 million in revenue, representing a 42% rise.

Smart Home: This category, which includes products like smart thermostats, IP cameras, smart locks, lights and doorbells will hit sales of 29 million units in 2017, up 63%, and bring in $3.5 billion, up 57%.

Digital Assistant Devices: Thanks to the popularity of products like Amazon’s Echo and Google Home, unit sales are expected to reach 4.5 million units in 2017, up 52%, and $608 million in revenue, up 36%.

4K/UH D TVs: Shipments are expected to reach 15.6 million units, up 51%, and pump revenues of $14.6 billion, up 38%.

As part of a plan to enable customers to save energy and manage “greener” homes, Comcast’s Xfinity Home service has struck a partnership and integration agreement with Zen Ecosystems, maker of a new connected thermostat.

Zen’s thermostat is now a “core” device in the Xfinity Home ecosystem and represents another step toward the relaunch of an “EcoSaver” technology/platform that aims to reduce energy usage by optimizing home heating and cooling using real-time weather analytics.

RELATED: Comcast Connects With Earth Networks

 “At Xfinity Home, we are always looking for new ways to delight our customers and add value to our services,” Daniel Herscovici, senior vice president and general manager of Xfinity Home, said in a statement. “We are eager to unveil a new home energy management service soon, fully integrated with Zen Ecosystems, that will redefine what customers expect from their smart home services. When we relaunch EcoSaver in the spring, our customers will be able to transform their smart homes into greener homes, while continuing to help them save money on their monthly energy bills.”

Zen Ecosystems joins a growing list of third-party companies to integrate products with Xfinity Home, a security and home automation service that has more than 500,000 subscribers. Other announced partners include August (smart locks), Chamberlain (garage controllers), Lutron (wireless controllers and dimmers), Nest (thermostats) and Sengled and Jasco (lighting). Comcast also builds its own products for Xfinity Home, including the recently introduced “xCam,” a WiFi-connected, HD indoor/outdoor camera.

RELATED: Comcast’s Xfinity Home Lights Up More Device Partners

Comcast, which expects to announce more partnership this year ,has also relaunched its Works With Xfinity Home portal as the MSO looks to drive more visibility and scale into the program.

Comcast is also in the process of buying a big piece of Icontrol, and has discussed how that acquisition might enable the operator to pursue an additional wholesale/white-label business. Icontrol's customers include Cox Communications, Rogers and Charter Communications. Fierce Cable reported that Comcast is holding meetings at CES this week with Charter and other operators to discuss potential licensing opportunities. 

RELATED: Why Comcast is Buying Icontrol 

Las Vegas -- Indicating a slow but steady rise in an emerging format, virtual reality (VR) headsets are expected to reach 2.5 million units this year, up 79% versus 2016, while driving $660 million in revenues, a predicted year-on-year jump of 42%, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) found in a semi-annual industry report released Tuesday.

“This area is really, really new,” Dr. Shawn DuBravac, the CTA’s chief economist, stressed here during a presentation of the group’s top tech trends heading into the show, noting that Sony’s PS VR product didn’t even go on sale until toward the end of 2016.

“[VR] Hardware sales will come slowly, surely,” he said, noting that there will also be a push toward VR-capable PCs that cost less than $1,000, and pointing to Lenovo’s announcement that it’s getting into the business of selling relatively inexpensive VR viewers and VR-ready laptops.

From a broader standpoint, the CTA, in its latest U.S. Consumer Technology Sales and Forecasts report, expects the U.S. consumer technology industry to produce $292 billion in retail revenues in 2017, and to be driven by emerging product categories such as 4K/Ultra HD, digital assistants, smart home products and wearables.

Here’s a snapshot on how CTA expects emerging CE segments to produce this year:

-Smart Home: The category, which includes products like smart thermostats, IP cameras, smart locks, lights and doorbells and smartwatches, will hit sales of 29 million units in 2017, up 63%, and bring in $3.5 billion, up 57%.

-Digital Assistant Devices: Aided by products like Amazon’s Echo and Google Home, unit sales are expected to reach 4.5 million units, up 52%, and $608 million in revenue, up 36%.

-4K/UHD TVs: 2017 shipments are expected to reach 15.6 million units, up 51%, and pump revenues of $14.6 billion, up 38%.

-Drones: Total sales will top 3.4 million units, up 40%, and, for the first time, eclipse $1 billion in revenues. And new use cases are emerging. DuBravac noted that Alarm.com and Qualcomm are working together on a home system that auto-deploys drones to provide a bird’s eye view when an alarm is tripped.

-Wearables: Driven by fitness activity trackers, the category will hit 48 million unit sales this year ,up 14%, and bring in revenues of $5.5 billion, up 3%.

Maturing technology categories (smartphones, TVs, tablets, laptops, and desktops) will contribute almost half of total industry revenue (48%). Among them, LCD TVs are expected to see a 2% decline in in unit volume (39 million units), while tablet sales drop 5%, and smartphones tick up 2%. Laptops will hold steady at 27 million units, with desktops dipping 7%.

During his talk, DuBravac emphasized the rise of voice-controlled computing and AI.

While the word error rate of voice recognition technologies were near 100% in 1995, it improved to about 23% in 2013, and will drop down to “human parity” – or about 5% to 6% -- in 2017, he said.

“The next computer interface is voice” as the technology hits an inflection point and makes the leap from “theoretical to practical,” DuBravac said, noting that he expects to see 700 new apps for Amazon Alexa introduced here over the next four days. 

CNBC is stepping further into the world of A.I. as a launch partner for “Actions” for Google Assistant, a feature for products such as the Google Home hub that competes with platforms such as Amazon Alexa, used in smart home products such as the Echo.

RELATED: Google At Home With WiFi, Smart Hub, 4K Chromecast

To fuel the feature, the business net has debuted @CNBC, a “Conversation Action” for Google Assistant that lets viewers get information about the markets and shows that are running on CNBC. Per the FAQ, It's free to all U.S. consumers who have Google Home devices. 

CNBC said the new offering will offer market commentary from the network’s on-air stocks editor, Bob Pisani, and real-time market snapshots from the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq, as well as news updates from CNBC Radio.

Users can also use @CNBC to ask Google Assistant specific questions, such as: “Ok, Google, let me talk to CNBC about the markets,” or “Ok, Google, ask CNBC to tell me when The Profit is on next.”

 “As a launch partner for Actions on Google for the Google Assistant, we are very excited to offer users CNBC’s unparalleled content,” Deep Bagchee, SVP of CNBC product and technology, said in a statement. “With @CNBC, we are able to provide consumers with the information they want – from the latest business news to unique insights into the markets.”

Expanding on its curated smart home integration program for third-party products, Comcast said it will soon add support for two lighting partners – Jasco and Sengled – to its Xfinity Home platform.

Comcast, which helps outside vendors hook in via its Works With Xfinity Home initiative, said its smart home/security customers will be able to manage GE-branded plug-in and in-wall smart switches from Jasco and Sengled’s Element Touch connected LED lightbulbs via the Xfinity Home app.

RELATED: Home Smart Home (subscription required) 

Xfinity Home customers who also have Comcast’s X1 video service will also be able to bring up the smart home user interface on their TVs by saying, “Xfinity Home lights,” into the X1 voice remote.

Citing data from a study (PDF) from Icontrol Networks (Comcast announced a deal to acquire a large piece of Icontrol in June), more than a third of consumers said they are likely to buy connected lighting in the next 12 months.

RELATED: Why Comcast is Buying Icontrol

Jasco and Sengled are the latest third-party companies to be integrated with Xfinity Home. Others include August (smart locks), Chamberlain (garage controllers), Lutron (wireless controllers and dimmers), as well as Nest Learning Thermostats.

“By adding Jasco and Sengled to our growing list of curated smart home devices that we integrate with Xfinity Home, our customers will be able to create unique experiences that connect the devices that are important to them such as streaming security cameras, door locks, thermostats, and lights,” Daniel Herscovici, senior vice president and general manager of Xfinity Home, said in a statement. “We can integrate all of these devices into a unified experience on one easy-to-use platform.”

Comcast also builds its own products for Xfinity Home, including the recently introduced “xCam,” a WiFi-connected, HD indoor/outdoor camera.

Comcast said Xfinity Home subs can also set and manage rules/automated commands that trigger certain functions – for example, they can set a rule that turns on a light every day at sunset or every time the front door is opened.

Comcast revealed last summer that it has more than 500,000 Xfinity Home subs, but has not issued an updated sub figure since. In its Q3 earnings report, Comcast said that 55% of Xfinity Home subs were new to the company. At the end of that period, nearly 60% of Xfinity Home customers bundle four services – Internet, TV, phone and home security, and nearly all sign up for at least three products from the MSO.

RELATED: Comcast Pursues Bigger Piece of  Smart Home Market

Comcast is competing in the market against the likes of Alarm.com (which is also acquiring a piece of Icontrol), ADT and other service providers such as AT&T and  Verizon. EchoStar exited the smart home and home security game in September when it shut down Sage By Hughes, a do-it-yourself platform.

Food Network said it’s the first culinary network to launch a “skill” on Alexa-powered devices, such as the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Amazon Tap and Amazon Fire TV, enabling users to ask for and receive info about network shows, the network's schedule, and recipes that are featured on-air.

Users can add this element by asking, “Alexa, enable the Food Network skill.”

Once set up, Alexa will recognize several voice-delivered questions such as, “Alexa, what’s on Food Network right now?” and “Alexa, send me the recipe I saw on The Pioneer Woman yesterday.”

Food Network is adding the feature as consumers continue to gravitate to smart home platforms, including those that rely on voice to navigate and obtain information. 

“Voice is emerging as a way for consumers to connect and interact with brands in a way that provides value in their lives, and this launch is a first step toward more utility-based services down the road as we integrate with Alexa,” Liesel Kipp, vice president of product management for Food network parent company Scripps Networks Interactive.

“As the consumer experience evolves, it’s important that we super-serve our Food Network fans, meeting them anytime, anywhere they wish to engage with our brand as we continue to be the leader in food information, inspiration and entertainment,” added Henry Ahn, Scripps Networks’ president of content distribution and marketing.

Looking to provide better, more consistent in-home WiFi, Frontier Communications is hawking AirTies Wireless Networks’ Smart Mesh WiFi” platform via Frontier Secure, a site that sells a mix of smart home products and services.

Per the site, Frontier is selling the AirTies Smart Mesh WiFi product individually for $72 and in pairs for $144. Customers link those devices to the main router/gateway to expand and improve WiFi access in the home. Frontier sells products and services via Frontier Secure to residential and small business customers on a national basis, and offers products wholesale through strategic partnerships.

Frontier is the second (and largest) North American operator to deploy AirTies’s WiFi Mesh product; the first was Midco, which is selling a whole-home WiFi service starting at $7.95 per month. Frontier said it also has trials underway with mid-sized and large service providers in the U.S. AirTies is working with several providers outside the U.S., including Sky, Vodafone, Singtel, and Swisscom.

“At Frontier, we’re committed to continually improving the Connected Home experience to meet the needs of our customers across the country,” Kelly Morgan, SVP and GM of Frontier Secure, said in a statement. “AirTies has a proven track record of enhancing the performance of in-home Wi-Fi for leading operators around the globe, and we are pleased to bring its next-generation technology to our customers.” 

“Delivering quality broadband is no longer just about reaching the home, but about the experience throughout the entire home – a vision we share with Frontier,” added AirTies CEO Philippe Alcaras.

Comcast says its move to acquire of a big piece of Icontrol will enable the MSO’s Xfinity Home division innovate faster, gain access to a talented group of engineers, and open up wholesale opportunities as other operators look to expand their home security and automation businesses, or enter that marketplace.

“We’re focused heavily on the connected home security market and disrupting that market,” Dan Herscovici, senior vice president and general manager of Xfinity Home, said Thursday, soon after Comcast and Icontrol announced the deal.

He said that disruption is about “creating innovative user experiences and capabilities supporting or evolving what people might consider traditional home security.”

He noted that the overall market is growing at 2% to 3.5% (Comcast has more than 500,000 Xfinity Home customers), but that there’s a big opportunity in front of Comcast as some customers upgrade their systems while others are ripe to switch providers or are looking to take a smart home service for the first time.

“The opportunity in front of us is that there's 25 to 30 million households that have a monitored home security system, and of those, 70% are on an older, antiquated home security system,” Herscovici said. “We think that the solution we’re creating and the one that Icontrol unlocks, will allow us to give  consumers an amazing new set of features that will do two things… convince traditional home security subs to switch and convince people to jump in we provide  a lot more value.”

Comcast is buying Icontrol’s “Converge” platform, the piece of Xfinity Home that provides the service’s fundamental security “state machine,” which supports the engines, rules and requirements for that component.

Icontrol’s ZigBee-based Converge platform (Alarm.com is buying Icontrol’s Connect platform, which leans on Z-wave, is more focused on dealer installs, and counts ADT as its biggest customer) has already been working in concert with home-grown Comcast’s platform that supports a broader set of smart  home products, including those developed by Comcast as well as third-party devices from partners such as Nest, Chamberlain (garage door controllers), August (door locks) and Lutron (wireless light controllers and dimmers).

When put together, those platforms provide Comcast with a unified user experience and one app to control all of security and automation elements, but Comcast felt that buying the Icontrol piece will enable it to go faster and deepen that integration.

Icontrol, Herscovici said, “does a lot of things really, really well…Building everything yourself doesn’t always make a lot of sense…especially when you have a talented group of engineers that have been thinking about this for ten-plus years.”

Beyond Comcast’s own Xfinity Home product, Herscovici said the company is also excited about the wholesale/white-label business that the Icontrol acquisition will open up.

“Our hope is to grow both businesses,” he said. “They should be generally complementary, but we are prepared to support unique requirements of each of our customers just like any platform provider would do.”

Cox Communications, Rogers Communications and two MSOs just acquired by Charter -- Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks – have been using Icontrol for both security and their larger home automation platforms. Charter said it is still mulling how home security and automation services will fit into its longer-term strategy.

Of that group, Cox is already syndicating/licensing Comcast’s X1 platform for its next-gen Contour video platform.

Charter Communications said it will continue to support  home security and home automaton services for customers who came on board via its merger with Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, but noted that it’s reducing its focus on sales of that product as it assesses that line of business. 

DSL Reports reported Thursday that an industry source indicated that Charter, which inherited the TWC and BHN smart home offering via the merger, might shut down that service. Charter, however, stressed that existing customers will continue to be supported.

“Existing Intelligent Home customers are being fully supported and will continue to be fully supported,” a Charter official said in a statement. “Intelligent Home is a new business for Charter and we are in the process of assessing it. While we assess the program we are reducing the focus on sales.”

The TWC and BHN home security and automation offering is powered by Icontrol, a company that works with several other cable operators, including Cox Communications, Comcast and Rogers Communications, and is reportedly in talks to sell its various assets and products  to Comcast and Alarm.com.  

Nest employees are probably breathing a sigh of relief after reportedly receiving word from new CEO (and long-time cable industry vet) Marwan Fawaz that the Google-owned smart home unit is not on the block.

“My only agenda for Nest is to scale and grow with innovative products. Nest is not for sale, and scaling and innovation aren’t mutually exclusive,” Fawaz told Nest employees in a memo obtained by The Verge, which noted that an Alphabet source also told the online pub that “Nest is categorically not for sale.”

So, there.

But it’s easy to see why some might think that Fawaz’s appointment could lead to a sale (I’d be lying if I said that thought didn’t enter my head, too).

After all, Fawaz’s big focus after taking the helm of Motorola Home in June 2012 was to find a buyer. And he succeeded -- Arris acquired Motorola Home from Google in 2013 for $2.35 billion, the high end of the expected range.

Per the memo obtained by The Verge, Fawaz also noted that there’s no change in Nest’s strategy and direction, as the plan is to focus on the product roadmap, which included a reference to a new product that was redacted from the copy shared with The Verge.

So, what is Fawaz’s plan? Nest turned down our first request to speak to him, telling us he’s unavailable for the time being, so we’ll have to keep at it.

In the meantime, I’m not surprised that, unlike the situation at Motorola Home, Fawaz is not joining Nest to sell it off. Google paid handsomely for Nest and the smart home and larger Internet of Things are all part of the plan. Plus, Nest has lots of brand equity.

Though retail will probably remain part of Nest’s focus, Fawaz’s value to the company also includes his deep ties into the cable MSOs and other types of service providers, including many that have smart home products and direct relationships with millions of customers that Nest, as a partner, could benefit from. Those deals could perhaps offer the path with least resistance to the kind of growth and scale that Nest desires. 

And Nest has already started down that path. Nest’s Learning Thermostat now works with Xfinity Home, Comcast’s smart home platform, as well as with Icontrol’s “PEQ” retail product also works with Nest's smart thermostat. Icontrol also works with Bright House Networks, Time Warner Cable (now part of Charter Communications) and Cox Communications, but has not yet detailed if its Nest integration will be extended to the platform in use by those service provider partners.

Additionally, Sage, the DIY retail smart home/security service from EchoStar Technologies (the technology-focused corporate cousin of Dish Network), currently supports Nest products, including security cameras, smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and the Learning Thermostat.  Sage remains a retail play, but I also won’t be surprised if it also becomes a platform that will eventually be integrated with  and sold by Dish.

Marwan Fawaz, a long-time cable and tech industry exec, has been named CEO of Nest, the Google-owned maker of an iconic smart thermostat and other smart home products.

Nest’s original CEO and founder Tony Fadell shared that news by announcing Friday on the Nest blog that he was leaving the company more than two years after it was sold to Google for $3.2 billion.

Calling the news “bittersweet,” Fadell said “I have decided that the time is right to ‘leave the Nest,’” noting that revenues at the smart home company have grown in excess of 50% year-over-year, and that “millions” of people now use Next products in 190 countries. He also said the third-gen Nest Learning Thermostat sold 1 million units in half the time of its previous generation.

Nest is part of the “Other Bets” unit at Alphabet (Google’s new parent company) that also includes Google Fiber, self-driving cars, Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences), GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Google Capital X.  That division generated revenues of $166 million in Q1 2016, up from $80 million in the year-ago period.

Nest pulled down $340 million in sales last year, aided by sales from its acquisition of Dropcam, but still a figure that fell short of Google’s initial expectations, according to Recode.

“Although this news may feel sudden to some, this transition has been in progress since late last year and while I won’t be present day to day at Nest, I’ll remain involved in my new capacity as an advisor to Alphabet [Google’s parent company] and Larry Page,” Fadell wrote. “This will give me the time and flexibility to pursue new opportunities to create and disrupt other industries – and to support others who want to do the same – just as we’ve done at Nest. We should all be disrupters!”

Fawaz, Nest’s new CEO, has strong ties to Google as well as to the cable industry and technology vendor community.

Fawaz, a founder and principal of consulting firm Sarepta Advisors and recently-named to the 50th anniversary class of Cable TV Pioneers,was in charge of Motorola Home before Google sold it to Arris in 2013. Notably, Motorola Mobility expanded its reach into the connected home market in 2010 when it snapped up a startup called 4Home.

Of recent note, Fawaz was appointed to the board of billing and customer care company CSG International, and has been serving on the board of Synacor and as an advisory board member of ADT, Liberty Global and Guavus, a big data firm.

Update: Per his Linked In profile, Fawaz is the technical advisory board chair at ADT, a top company in the home security and automation sector. 

Fawaz is also a former CTO of Charter Communications and Adelphia Communications (sold to Comcast and Time Warner in 2005), and served as an engineering exec at MediaOne (now part of Comcast). He also served as an investment analyst at Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc.

“Marwan’s extensive technology and engineering knowledge, his experience with global service providers, as well as his background in connected home platforms will be valuable in continuing our trajectory, especially in scaling the business, working with our partners, and supporting our enterprise channels,” Fadell wrote. “I have no doubt that the company will continue to flourish under his guidance and can’t wait to see the innovations currently in development brought to market.”

Comcast is pushing ahead on a plan to take Xfinity Home, its home security and automation platform, to the next level in part by broadening a curated mix of devices that work with the platform while also adding elements that drive more value into the service and reduce service friction. 

“First and foremost, we have over the past year and a half focused heavily on disrupting the home security market,” Dan Herscovici, senior vice president and general manager of Xfinity Home, said in an interview soon after he keynoted the Parks Associates Connections conference in San Francisco on Tuesday (May 24).

But Comcast is now pushing well beyond connected home security and is now shooting to "reinvent the way consumers think about home security, to redefine what their expectation is from their home security system," he said. 

That means extending to other areas of the connected home, such as security cameras, door locks, garage door openers, doorbells and enabling them all on a common platform that simplifies the process for the consumer.

In that area, Comcast has been building its own smart home products while also extending a bridge to third-party products via its Works With Xfinity Home Program. About a dozen partners are on board, with four – Nest (smart thermostats), Chamberlain (garage door controllers), Lutron (smart lighting), and August (smart locks) – already integrated.

And Herscovici was clear that the program will provide customers with a “curated” blend of what it deems as best-of-breed third-party devices. The program uses APIs for integration, but products also must pass core functionality tests to determine if they are among the top options in their market and if they can be trusted to provide the necessary levels of security and reliability. Based on that process, the idea is to offer two to three options in different categories that offer a range of pricing and functionality.

During his keynote, Herscovici said Comcast is working to help drive the penetration of smart home services to “20%, 30% or 40%” of homes and to focus on four areas – life safety (security), peace of mind (access control), saving money (reducing energy use), and lifestyle (such as lighting and shade control).

As part of its game plan, Comcast also hopes to pump adoption by removing some of the friction by redefining what a platform means to customers and to rethink how it uses devices that are already in the home, such as routers and gateways, to “unlock and connect” various connected smart home products.

Comcast announced last year that it has more than 500,000 Xfinity Home customers, but has not yet updated that figure. “We are very happy with the growth of our home security product,” Herscovici

At the Parks Associates event, he said 75% of Xfinity Home net adds over the past 12 months were new to the category, and that about 80% that do have home security are using legacy systems.

“We are at the start of a massive upgrade cycle,” he said, likening it to a shift from flip-phones to smartphones. The question, he posed, is  who will win that “jump ball?”

There will be plenty of companies leaping for it. Comcast is trying to expand its share amid surging competition in the smart home and home security market. In addition to facing competition from AT&T, Verizon, ADT as well as a new retail-focused, DIY product from EchoStar called Sage, Comcast must also deal with new products and services from Google and Amazon.

As for Google and Amazon, Herscovici said Comcast views them as “frenemies,” referencing Xfinity Home’s integration with the Nest smart thermostat, and the potential to link Comcast’s service with Amazon Echo.

Working with Amazon’s platform is a theoretical at this point, but “there’s no reason why that voice interface [from Amazon Echo] couldn’t also interact with Xfinity Home,” he said in an interview. “It’s not something outside the realm of possibility. The point is we're open to best in class experiences. We're open to seeing things through the eye of the consumer and having the consumer drive what they want to be part of the ecosystem.”

Voice control appears to be a potentially valuable addition to that ecosystem. Comcast currently offers voice navigation on its X1 video service with its XR11 remote and has been noodling on ways to extend that functionality to Xfinity Home.

“We have working prototypes that allow you to arm and disarm [Xfinity Home] with your voice and turn the lights on… with the XR11 remote,” Herscovici said. “So stay tuned for news on that.”

And, as is the case for its video service, don’t expect Comcast to look outside the MSO’s  traditional service area for growth opportunities for Xfinity Home.

“We think there’s a lot of untapped potential in the footprint we serve today,” he said.