Microsoft to Sell Insteon Home Automation Kits Online and Through Microsoft Stores

Microsoft, which took an unsuccessful stab at home automation via its Window Media Center PC platform a decade ago, turned to Insteon and its nine-year-old dual-band meshed networking platform to give home control another go. Insteon announced Thursday a strategic relationship with Microsoft in which the home automation company has developed Windows 8.1-specific apps for Windows Phone 8 devices that will be sold through Microsoft stores.

Insteon products, sold through retailers including Amazon, Best Buy, Menards, New Egg, Sears, Smarthome, Tiger Direct, The Home Automation Store and Walmart, will be available from MicrosoftStore.com June 1 and in most Microsoft stores in July. The companies billed the move as “Microsoft’s retail entry into the connected home market.”

Microsoft’s previous foray into home automation was via the Custom Electronic Design & Installation channel through third-party partners including Exceptional Innovation, which became Lifeware. The Lifeware platform was rife with recurring software licenses for the Windows Media Center software, and it never gained significant traction.

Insteon has a do-it-yourself (DIY) home automation platform with no recurring fees for consumers. Insteon Chief Operating Officer Joe Gerber told Consumer Electronics Daily that Insteon is “beyond the DIY” customer because it has put setup inside the product’s hub that ships with its starter kits. “The apps do the set up for you,” he said. All of the products “are very, very simple to set up,” Gerber said.

The relationship isn’t exclusive for either company, Gerber said. Insteon maintains its existing retailer base and is free to sell through Apple or Google stores if an opportunity arises, he said. On whether Microsoft stores might also sell home automation products based on technology from Savant, ZigBee, Z-Wave or others, Gerber said he doesn’t know what Microsoft’s home automation plans involve. Microsoft was unavailable for comment.

Gerber wouldn’t say how long the two companies worked together to develop the home control kits (Starter Kit, Home Kit and Business Kit), Windows Phone app and store integration processes. Kits include a hub, camera and motion sensor, and prices start at $199. Stand-alone products that will also be sold at Microsoft stores include a leak sensor, open/close sensor, LED bulb, on/off module and Wi-Fi camera with prices ranging from $29.99 to $79.99, according to a news release. “This relationship is more than us developing the Windows Phone 8 app,” Gerber said. There’s no installation component to the relationship, and Insteon will handle all technical support, Gerber said.

The Insteon app is tied to Windows 8.1 tiles, which enable users to see different scenarios occurring in the home simultaneously, Gerber said. He gave the example of having a Microsoft Surface tablet showing a camera feed from the baby’s room at the same time that tiles change when a door opens or to indicate a leak. Product packaging says the products were optimized to work with Windows 8 devices, but it also says the Insteon products work with iOS and Android products, Gerber said.

Insteon benefits from exposure to new potential customers through stores and from an extension of its platform capability, Gerber said. The products are existing Insteon products that are sold to other retailers, Gerber said. At Microsoft stores, consumers will be able to try out the devices, use the mobile app and buy the products that they'll install themselves. The kits will “forward and backward integrate” with all other Insteon devices, including some 100 core products, he said.

"Connecting a home or small business is harder than it appears,” Gerber said. Difficulties include commands not getting through over radio frequency due to interference. With Wi-Fi-based systems, network bottlenecks occur in high-usage households that can affect home control operations. Gerber said Insteon’s dual-band platform is more reliable because the physical layers aren’t correlated. “If RF is reliable to 99 percent and power line is the same, by having two physical layers, the reliability goes to one in 10,000 times,” he said.