Best Buy's ConnectedLife One-Ups Geek Squad

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Monday December 25, 2006 @10:25AM from the home-in-a-box dept.

Retail writes "Best Buy is going to sell a packaged solution of Media Center plus home automation. Literally, it's a package — a box. A customer walks into a Best Buy store, delights in the demo, buys the package, and waits for its arrival in a big box about four-foot square. The package costs $15,000. For that you get a Media Center PC, Lifeware automation software from Exceptional Innovation, an Xbox 360, IP surveillance cameras, automated light switches, a thermostat and installation. It's a complicated business model, called ConnectedLife.Home, and it's bound to pit the new group against other Best Buy factions like Geek Squad."

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Pricing by Animats · 2006-12-25 11:34 · Score: 3, Insightful
- HP z560 Digital Entertainment Center - $1800 list
- XBox 360 - $400
- 2 Panasonic wireless cameras - $265 each
- One communicating thermostat from Residential Control Systems - $217
- Ethernet/powerline adapters from Corinex - 3 @ $199 each
- Five dimmers @ $40 ea
- Five switches @ $40 ea
- Two keypads @ $150 ea
That adds up to $4,244. They want $15,000 for this gear, installed. What's wrong with this picture?
Misleading story and description by staeiou · 2006-12-25 11:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

How exactly is this supposed to create a rift between the retail drones who sell hardware and the Geek Squad who fixes it? They are two different branches of the company.

This isn't a story. Stop selling ad space in our stories, OSTG. You've got them everywhere else.