Home-automation start-up Revolv, which began selling a $299 home-automation hub through its website and Amazon last November, is expanding its retail distribution.
Revolv’s $299 hub enables control of multiple home devices via a single iOS app, with an Android app to come. It also lets users program automated scenes triggered by sensors, time of day, or cellphone proximity to the house.
Revolv, which began selling its hub through the Smarthome catalog and Smarthome.com in March, will launch sales through Build.com in April and began last week to test sales through 72 Home Depot stores, head of sales Michael Dee told TWICE. Test sales through Home Depot’s website start next week.
Revolv has also talked to CE buying groups.
For the Home Depot rollout, the retailer created an end cap featuring the Revolv hub and more than a dozen products that were already in the retailer’s selection and can be controlled through the hub by an iOS smartphone or tablet app, Dee said.
Like other mass-market home-automation hubs, the Revolv hub incorporates multiple wireless standards to centralize the control of multiple incompatible home-automation products already available from other brands. Via a single iOS app, all of the products in a house can be controlled from within the house and remotely via cellular. An Android app is coming in the second quarter.
The app and hub not only enable control of different types and brands of products but also integrate the control of different products to create macros, or scenes. One macro, for example, could turn off the lights and adjust a thermostat at the press of a button when the user leaves the house.
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