uControl’s New Products and Open Strategy
Austin-based uControl is making some impressive improvements to the product strategy, and they’re taking it on the road to the National Cable and Telecommunications Association show in New Orleans. uControl was founded in November of 2005 and launched their first product at DEMO Fall in 2006, and they won a DEMOgod award! Back then they had created a better home security box that allowed web or cellphone access, and it was a 5-minute swap of the existing home security boxes by ADT and other similar companies. Besides the web access, the original uControl system worked over broadband and cellular, just in case a burglar cut your phone line.
This week uControl is announcing a major new revision to their product. They’ve added a touch screen interface, and they’ve opened up their platform to widgets. The touch screen can be mounted either on the wall, or on a tabletop. With the touchscreen and open widget platform, it’s possible to do additional cool stuff with the uControl hardware, like home automation, weather monitoring, or anything you can dream up. There’s even a YouTube widget! You wouldn’t necessarily want to watch YouTube on your uControl touchscreen, but it demonstrates that you can add pretty much anything to it.
With these new capabilities, it’s easy to imagine all sorts of uses, and it makes the uControl device even more valuable. You could change the home thermostat from the web, turn on lights, or check the status of the doors and windows in the house. If the grandparents had a Flickr widget on their uControl touch panel, you could push pictures of the grandkids to them and show it in a widget. A storm warning widget could monitor the weather for tornado activity, and sound some sort of alarm. You could probably use your iPhone to make sure you turned the A/C off before leaving the house. The possibilities are pretty endless.
You won’t be seeing uControl boxes at your local Home Depot just yet. The company intends to continue selling the device through channels such as home alarm companies, cable companies, phone companies, and others who are typically aware of when consumers are moving into a new house. How big is the market? There are 28 million home security systems in the U.S. Annual recurring revenue from monthly monitoring adds up to $6.4B.
The company has been funded by the founding executives, friends, and family. Executives say the option of institutional financing is always on the table, and they may seek that type of funding when the time is right.
Filed under: News, Uncategorized
[...] Fabian’s straight talk wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAustin-based uControl is making some impressive improvements to the product strategy, and they’re taking it on the road to the National Cable and Telecommunications Association show in New Orleans. uControl was founded in November of … [...]
there are about two million households with security systems installed but not monitored.Open strategy is right way to follow.
Display ad. in the panel. What a great idea.
[...] Association show in New Orleans. uControl was founded in November of 2005 and launchedhttp://www.austinstartup.com/2008/05/ucontrols-new-products-and-open-strategy/af2 Press Release ArenaFan OnlineCHICAGO ?? Tennessee Valley wide receiver/defensive back TRAVIS [...]