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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).
"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.
- 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
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".
I'm guessing no one's making any money on home security since at best it's a placebo.
Being secure means paying attention, not acting like an asshole and just generally not being stupid. Which a bunch of cheap sensors and some noisemakers won't come close to replicating.
Not to mention that the kind of people/domiciles that could actually use a boost in security probably don't have the disposable income to throw away on some plastic junk.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Yeah, my dog gets pretty crazy after 40 ounces of malt liquor too.
You do realize that those statistics don't count the majority of times that a gun is used for self defense, right? If someone commits assault or murder, the police are virtually always contacted. When someone commits suicide, the authorities are virtually always contacted. When someone shoots themselves on accident, they will generally go to a hospital, and... the authorities are contacted.
On the other hand, in the vast majority of cases, when a gun is used for self protection in the home, no shots are fired, and the homeowner does not contact the authorities because they then run the risk of being arrested for protecting themselves from a threat that they have already neutralized.
So, while the dog pisses on the fire, you shoot into the air to summon emergency services?
Did you know that for every car manufactured, at least 95% of them are involved in some kind of crime? From parking and traffic violations to human trafficking and murder, cars are the cornerstone for this EPIDEMIC!! ZOMG!
Soccer mom fear mongering doesn't make a good argument for (or against) anything.
It was mostly things like remote controlled power strips, IP cameras, thermostats, and electronic door locks. I'm not surprised they stopped selling the service since most of those things either don't need a computer to control (IP cameras with a built-in server or a central reciever for multiple cameras) or could just be set to a timer (power outlets and thermostats). It was a neat service for people who didn't want to put in the effort to setup their own stuff and wanted a all-in-one deal to control all of those things but kind of useless in the end.
Those who with a car sometimes die by their own car....
Citation? The lowest number I've seen on defensive gun uses is 64,000 year. That's via a methodology expected to undercount, but even if we assume that it's an overcount and take *half* of it, then defensive gun use is likely to be more than three times as common as homicide via firearm.
Other estimates -- highly controversial ones, to be sure -- put the annual number of DGUs in the millions.
More importantly, those homicides by firearm are mostly being committed by people who already have criminal records. People who are legally barred from getting guns. But laws keep bad guys away from guns as well as drug laws keep junkies away from heroin; and keeping good citizens -- the sort who are unlikely to murder anyone but might come to someone's aid -- away from guns is not only a waste of resources and corrosive to liberty, it's counter-productive to crime prevention.
Firearms accidents are actually rare and you are far more likely to drown or die in a fire than be accidentally shot to death. Suicide is sad but the means are irrelevant, people manage to kill themselves quite well in Japan despite a lack of guns. And comparing DGU "in the home" with felonious shootings "in or around a home" -- a lovely bit of rhetorical misdirection and intellectual dishonesty.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood