Family-owned Prodea Systems has developed a white-label mass-market home-automation system that, unlike competing systems, integrates control of home systems, networked AV content, and third-party streaming and download services in one hub.
Prodea’s Residential Operating System (ROS) integrates control of home systems, networked A/V content, and third-party streaming and download services in one hub controlled via a tablet, smartphone or TV UI.
The systems, content and services are controlled from a single app running on iOS and Android devices or from a computer.
The company’s Residential Operating System (ROS) “protocol-agnostic” platform also connects to home health-care devices and telemedicine services, and it offers low-cost home VoIP phone service.
In the U.S., the Richardson, Texas-based company is targeting what it called “emerging” service providers and retailers, which could market their own private-label systems with recurring subscription revenues shared with Prodea. “Recurring services are an extremely high-margin business,” said Andrew Tauhert, marketing and business development executive VP.
In the U.S., Prodea is competing for retailers’ business with the likes of Zonoff, whose platform is sold by Staples under the Staples Connect brand, and AlertMe, whose platform and services are sold by Lowe’s under the Iris brand.
Emerging service providers include residential developers. Prodea has signed up Miami-based Fort Capital Club and Hillwood Development, a Dallas-based Perot company. Other emerging providers include over-the-top (OTT) service providers that could incorporate additional services into their set-tops. For example, Canal Sur, a cable network providing Latin American content, is including ROS in its new over-the-top (OTT) service model.
Outside the U.S., Prodea has begun rolling products and services through telcos, cable companies, wireless carriers and other service providers, such as satellite-TV broadcasters.
In the U.S., there are many more channels through which to offer Prodea service than outside the U.S., said CEO Anousheh Ansari. In the U.S., she adds, traditional service providers as telcos and cable companies view home automation as an add-on to monitored security services, and service prices run at the higher end as a result.
Anousheh Ansari and the company’s other co-founders, president Hamid Ansari and CTO Amir Ansari, started up multiple technology companies over the past 20 years, including Telecom Technologies, which developed one of the first soft-switch platforms to switch analog phone calls to VoIP networks. The company was acquired by Sonus Networks in 2000 for $1.2 billion.
In launching its ROS platform in the U.S., the trio said they would offer retailers and other clients the flexibility to incorporate whatever wireless control protocols and third-party services, including streaming services that they want.
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