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Verizon Discontinues Home Automation Service After 2 Years
An anonymous reader writes "Verizon has discontinued its Home Monitoring and Control solution, a $10/month service for do-it-yourselfers that enables remote monitoring and control of security, lighting, thermostats and more. The author notes Verizon 'was attempting to become the first successful provider of a DIY security/automation system that had a monthly fee separate from a professionally monitored security system. ... Providers could (and do) charge premiums of $10 or more for automation and self-monitored security as an attachment to professional monitoring, but not as a standalone service.'"
If you're paying a third party for a service, it's not DIY.
I've had DIY home security for almost 20 years now. There's no need to pay for monitoring. When something is worth alerting me about, the system sends me a text ( before that, it paged me).
My dog and .40 are the best DIY home security.
"It's just as well," the Verizon spokesperson said, "It wasn't close to turning a profit, and that didn't even count the extra costs feeding the home info from all sensors to the NSA, whom we aren't even legally allowed to charge."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
If you're paying Verizon to do it, how is it DIY?
- There just aren't a lot of devices linked yet within a home, especially since Verizon was targeting a novice and not someone who's played with X10 or can configure their own router.
- Verizon support is terrible for most products, and this would likely have been even worse.
- Who really needs to control their lighting and thermostats more than they already do. By now anyone with a computer or Verizon Internet service likely has a programmable thermostat, motion sensor outdoor lights, and timers on lamps for when they go on vacation. Is it worth paying a bloated company like Verizon $120 a year to help you manage what you're already handling fine for free?
The nail in the coffin was probably Google purchasing Nest. And no, I did not RTFA.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
"In Soviet America, home automation automates--" nah, I got nothing.
ADT stock just plunged 25% recently because they aren't doing well...
and it hasn't been.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
There should be a link to the classic interface at the bottom of the page. Click it, and you won't be bothered with the beta anymore. At least, when I got drafted months ago, that's how it worked.
You know its funny, these guys once in a while get to a market too early, then because revenue is too weak, decide it isn't promising enough to invest in. Players enter the market (Nest, Google, etc) and it slowly starts to pick up steam. MBA's higher up decide it's been "long enough" so divest themselves of the endeavor. Mark my words, within the next 36 months there will be an explosion in that marketspace, some Verizon executive is going to scream "why didn't we see this" and then they will take 2 years reentering the market they tried to start.
This is why I laugh at large corporation "innovation".
There's just too many DIY options out there for self monitoring to make it worth paying somebody else to do what the owner can themselves. But then again there certainly are different needs for different people. For example EyezOn has a module called Envisalink 3 which works with DSC and Honeywell security systems: it makes them accessible via the web and alerts can be sent via text/email to a number of contacts for a number of events. I've had the module for about a year now, picked it up for around $130, it was easy to install and I am very happy with it. Just throwing it out there.
That is simply not true. These guys have been offering third party monitoring for DIY home security for over a decade.
http://www.smarthome.com/alarm...
I highly doubt any Verizon customer actually had home automation, because of the extensive rewiring that is required for it to work. Security systems aren't home automation.
You don't hear about someone successfully defending themselves or their home with firearms because the so-called press in the US refuses to publish such stories. Yet they are out there. Read Armed Citizen
bullshit. Show your source.
And your point is what exactly?
Are you implying that by exercising a natural, civil, and constitutionally protected right to self defense, this person is causing all of the other issues you mentioned?
We kill 30,000 people per year with automobiles. Each time we get behind the wheel we increase the risks for all of those around us. By your logic, we should all give up automobiles to prevent those 30,000 deaths each year.
Rational people, unlike yourself, balance the costs and benefits of every action. Society has balanced these costs with regards to gun ownership and decided that the right to protect oneself with a firearm is so important that we made it number two in the bill of rights.
Thanks, John!
If others are chargin ten dollars and offering more couldn't you just, you know drop the price so it is compeitive? Is that just a forgien concept to a company that faces Duopolies at worst in terms of competition?
What statistics would those be? There is a plethora of analyses and meta-analyses of violent crime statistics that show, at worst, guns do not affect violent crime rates and at best, they reduce them.
But please, continue to delude yourself that you're the rational one with ad hominem attacks on people you don't understand.
Unmonitored systems can call 911 too. It's actually a little faster than monitored systems where: the alarm calls the security company - the security company calls you and asks for your password - if no response or wrong password the security company calls 911. Just make sure to minimize the false positives or you'll really piss off the local 911 center.