Looking to add smarts to home networks while also ironing out many of the complexities, Comcast is using this year’s CES to introduce “Digital Home,” a tightly integrated, cloud-powered platform that aims to enable its subs to centralize and organize their networks via millions of in-home broadband gateways.
Comcast expects the new whole-home platform to go live by the end of Q1 2017, according to Chris Satchell, the former Nike and Microsoft exec who joined Comcast as executive VP and chief product officer in mid-2015. Comcast will also introduce a consumer brand for the new Digital Home offering when it’s launched, he said.
The new offering, a free addition, will run on a new app for mobile devices and a web portal and will also be integrated with the X1 voice remote. It will feature personalization and parental control elements, quick self-install capabilities, and, for larger homes that need wider coverage, an option for self-configuring WiFi extenders that work in tandem with the home’s primary gateway.
Shooting for scale out of the chute, Comcast estimates that it will have 10 million gateways enabled with the Digital Home capability by the time the service goes fully live. The goal is to have 15 million gateways enabled with the new platform by the end of 2017.
