Hughes Among Those Showing Connected Products at Tech Event

Under a “speakeasy” theme, Pepcom’s Digital Experience news-media event last week in New York featured IoT technologies from a range of companies. Among those was EchoStar's Hughes, showing its first connected home product. The Sage by Hughes security and smart home system, launched at CES 2015, hit stores in early March. Sage is in a “slow rollout,” a company spokeswoman told us. It was designed to be do it yourself and is available from www.sagebyhughes.com, she said. The hub communicates with ZigBee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices to give the product a “long road map,” said the spokeswoman. It has a 911 feature that directly links customers upon alert to their home's emergency call center regardless of the homeowner's location. Other companies at Thursday's event were Savant and Uber.