Connected home growth hindered by inaccessibility, conflicting standards, execs say

When it comes to the connected home, the wireless industry is getting mired in discussions about standards and infrastructure instead of spending time making the concept easy for consumers to deploy and understand. That was the key message from panelists at the FierceWireless executive luncheon on the "Connected Home: A proving ground for the Internet of Things," held here at Mobile World Congress.

SmartThings CEO and founder Alex Hawkinson said that his company struggles with "creating experiences that are simple … How do you retain openness and drill down and make it accessible to consumers?"

That sentiment was echoed by Kevin Peterson, president of AT&T's (NYSE: T) Digital Life, the company's home automation and security solution that was launched two years ago. "We have to provide a solution in a meaningful, economically viable way," Peterson said, adding that any connected home product must be easy to deploy, otherwise the customer will spend more time "fixing it than using it."

Read more: http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/connected-home-growth-hindered-inaccessibility-conflicting-standards/2015-03-04

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