Ex-Colorado vNet CEO Behind New Home Automation System Running Android

TiO, short for “turn it on,” a new home automation brand, will launch at the end of June at the Infocomm show, Matt Curtin, vice president of sales and marketing for Automated Control Technology Partners (ACTP), told Consumer Electronics Daily. The brand is the next phase for ACTP CEO Mike Anderson, who announced last month that he planned to “redefine home control” and “revitalize the industry” (CED April 9 p15).

The goal of the Wi-Fi-based TiO brand is to “close the gap” between large-scale home automation systems of the past that required extensive programming and do-it-yourself solutions that do home entertainment and energy management inexpensively, Curtin said. “There’s a huge gap in between,” Curtin said.

TiO, staffed with veterans with CE experience at companies including Russound, Best Buy, Conn’s HomePlus, Niles Audio and various custom integration firms, will launch at InfoComm in Orlando with an audio, lighting and climate control system. The company show a more developed line at the CEDIA Expo in September, Curtin said. The Infocomm launch is partly convenience-driven, because the company is based on Orlando, but “we have some commercial aspirations down the road,” Curtin said. The company plans to launch consumer products through CEDIA dealers, chosen by a seasoned network of 18 manufacturer’s rep firms, with an eye toward a roster of 150-200 dealers supporting a full home automation product line by year-end, he said.

The products, software and user interface are all designed by TiO, and despite Anderson’s purchase of Colorado vNet from Russound last year, the gear is “all new stuff” and a “significant departure” from the vNet system, Curtin said. The initial rollout will include streaming audio, lighting control and climate control products, and support for additional subsystems will be added throughout the year, he said. Unlike traditional home automation systems for the CEDIA market, there’s no central controller consumers need to buy into, Curtin said. Part of being able to bridge the gap between traditional professionally installed home automation systems and do-it-yourself gear is “presenting a price point that makes sense,” he said. “You can get into a small automation system very inexpensively,” he said, citing one room of audio with streaming for $500. The design is scalable and easy to expand, he said.

ACTP has adopted an “outside in” philosophy for the system based on an “extremely friendly and intuitive” user interface that allows system software to learn user preferences and “evolve as consumers evolve,” Curtin said. “We're stripped all the difficulty away,” he said. Consumers can set their own moods and experiences and teach the system their preferences without having to rely on an integrator to program events. “Consumers can easily change preferences on the fly,” he said, which is a change from high-end home automations systems that “are complex and difficult to understand.” Following installation, consumers will be able to customize the system without the assistance of a professional, he said. He credited the user interface -- on a TiO touchscreen or Android mobile device -- for consumers’ ability to create their own scenes with no level of expertise beyond Android familiarity required.

On release at the end of June, the system will only work via the Android operating system, Curtin said. On whether the company wants to be seen as the Savant for Android world, Curtin said that while Savant “has done a great job of leveraging the Apple OS” on its Apple-centric home automation system, TiO is positioning itself as an open platform. “We want to work with everybody and be as open as possible,” he said.

To dealers, ACTP is promoting fast installation time with TiO so they can “get in, get out, get a check and get on the road.” Traditional home automation systems required three days to a week for installation and programming during the trim-out stage of home construction. With the “new realities of the economy, people don’t want to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on systems like these, and they want something that’s flexible down the road,” he said. “We think we can deliver that."

Elements of the TiO pitch sound like AT&T’s philosophy with the Digital Life system that just rolled out. Curtin maintained that TiO dealers’ expertise and experience in installation will be a strength in the eyes of consumers. “Someone from outside doesn’t have that level of expertise,” he said. Consumers have shown they're comfortable with having CEDIA-type integrators install home technology, he said. “I'm not necessarily sure they're as comfortable with the more traditional telecom-based companies installing lighting and security and safety systems,” Curtin said. “That’s the big difference for us. We're going to utilize the existing expertise that’s out there instead of trying to start a whole new ballgame.”