Ayla Networks and Universal Electronics (UEI) announced Thursday a new platform for the smart home in which UEI will pre-integrate Ayla Networks platform with UEI’s QuickSet Cloud platform and offer it through a resell service, as part of a new line of smart home managed hardware solutions.
UEI announced on Wednesday a collaboration with Microsoft to launch a new digital assistant platform for the home built on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform using AI and IoT services.
In order to empower brands to deliver these experiences directly to consumers, Universal Electronics and Microsoft have collaborated to offer a white-label smart home hub platform, Nevo Butler, with an integrated digital assistant, as well as a range of turnkey kits addressing home safety and security, energy management, and entertainment control, in residential or hospitality domains.
The relationship, which will officially launch at CES 2019 in Las Vegas, will allow UEI to further solidify its footprint in the rapidly growing IoT space by expanding its portfolio of home sensing, monitoring, and control solutions to include industry-leading device management and application enablement capabilities from Ayla Networks.
Together, the two companies will accelerate the transformation of the smart home market, bringing core technology and end-to-end applications to enable quick time-to-value and an elevated customer experience.
Nevo Butler is an end-to-end voice-enabled smart home hub with built-in white label digital assistant that unifies entertainment control and home automation experiences, enabling interoperability across fragmented ecosystems.
Powered by QuickSet Cloud, Nevo Butler delivers a versatile monitoring and control assistant solution for the home, capable of addressing a wide range of devices and use cases, ranging from voice control of an existing installed base of devices to innovative new Cloud services.
With a customizable digital assistant front-end, enterprise-level integration services and an expanding ecosystem of add-on services this platform allows service providers and consumer electronics brands to bring voice-enabled services to their customers while remaining in control of the consumer relationship.
Available as kits that address specific channel needs, Nevo Butler can be bundled with a range of certified devices including Ecolink® sensors, offering safety and security, energy management and hospitality applications, in addition to voice-enabled universal entertainment control.
“This landmark partnership is the latest example of how the Ayla platform can seamlessly combine with leading smart home solution providers to create winning products,” said Jonathan Cobb, CEO of Ayla Networks. “Ayla Networks has always stood for accelerating IoT-led transformation, and the new solutions from UEI will drive new services, innovative business models and rapid time to value from data analytics.”
“The Ayla partnership represents an important step toward our goal to be the leader in control and sensing technologies for the smart home. This collaboration strengthens our position in the existing smart home business by allowing us to simplify the IoT device management and onboarding process allowing us to expand our offerings to equipment manufacturers in HVAC,” said Arsham Hatambeiki, UEI’s SVP Product & Technology.
The smart home market is projected to have accelerated growth over the next five years, driven by several factors, including advancements in communication technologies; consumer interest in home automation and monitoring; a push for energy conservation; and the growth of utility and government-sponsored programs.
According to data from Navigant Research, the global market is expected to double in size, from $1.1 billion in 2016 to $2.2 billion in 2020, with the largest growth forecasted in North America.
