Sony and Tepco could start bringing smart home services to millions of Japanese households as soon as next year.
Sony Mobile Communications and power company Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings (Tepco) said both companies are looking into offering joint smart home services starting next year. Sony And Tepco are expected to sign a basic agreement on Tuesday, which will initiate discussions on future smart home services, Nikkei reports. The services will enable households to track and control the power usage of individual appliances. It should also allow households to monitor the presence of seniors and children in the home. Sony’s and Tepco’s new IoT services will initially target 20 million Tepco household customers.
As part of the collaboration, Sony is likely to provide smartphone-connected monitoring devices that will track and control power consumption for each appliance, as opposed to smart power meters that monitor the entire power usage of a household. Tepco is reported to handle billing for the joint services.
APAC smart home market shows fastest growth
The market for smart home in Asia Pacific (APAC) has been impacted positively by the increasing demand for energy efficient solutions, according to Technavio. The analyst firm predicts that the smart home M2M market in APAC will grow at a compound annual growth rate (GACR) of 41 percent between 2016 and 2020. This compares to 35 percent in the U.S. and 39 percent in Western Europe over the forecast period. Globally, the smart home M2M market is expected to grow 35 percent through 2020.
Looking more closely at the energy management and climate control systems segment of the smart home M2M market, Technavio forecasts global revenues of over $19 billion in 2020. “The market for energy management is driven by wireless internet penetration and the growing awareness of cloud services among consumers. Also, with the emergence of technologies such as ZigBee and Wi-Fi, the prospects for growth in this market segment will have a positive outlook. Furthermore, factors like the recent decrease in the prices of monitoring and control devices will fuel the adoption of energy management and climate control systems among corporate customers,” said Technavio.
It may be noted that Sony is not listed as one of the major vendors in that space at this point.
IIoT News Recap: Tele2 strengthens IoT security portfolio with Kombridge acquisition; Bosch and Bühler expand collaboration on food processing IoT; Mobileye and Delphi to co-develop SAE Level 4/5 automated driving solution; Wirepas and u-blox team up on scalable IIoT solutions
M&A: Tele2 strengthens IoT security portfolio with Kombridge acquisition
Operator Tele2 announced it has acquired Sweden-based Kombridge to strengthens its position within IoT security services. Kombridge offers security services, connected device management and application management for Internet of Things (IoT) applications and services. “We are extremely excited to welcome the Kombridge team to the Tele2 IoT family. The two companies have worked close to each other for a long time. Hence, we know each other well and are very confident that our combined strengths will make us an even stronger global IoT player with high value creation for our customers and partners,” said Rami Avidan, managing director of Tele2 IoT.
Industry 4.0: Bosch and Bühler expand collaboration on food processing IoT
Food process technology giant Bühler announced the company is to expand its existing research cooperation with Bosch to advance the company’s industry 4.0 vision. Leveraging Bosch’s know-how in electronics, sensor technology, and software around the Internet of Things (IoT) for the food processing industry, the collaboration should result in new product launches in 2017. “Following our successful R&D partnership, we are pleased to take the next step to form a commercial partnership. We are excited to utilise this partnership to create process solutions and services that improve yield and performance at reduced operating costs for our customers,” said Johannes Wick, CEO Grains and Food at Bühler. “We are excited to continue and extend our partnership with Bühler, a major industry specialist and leading company in the field of food processing technologies,” said Thorsten Müller, CEO of Bosch Connected Devices and Solutions. ”At Bosch, we combine experience gained from our own manufacturing activities in more than 250 plants with our expertise as a leading provider of electronics, sensors and software for industrial IoT solutions. We are not only optimizing our own worldwide manufacturing base, we are also actively seeking to work with partners like Bühler to build a value creation network beyond company boundaries and turn Industry 4.0 into reality.”
Autonomous driving: Mobileye and Delphi to co-develop SAE Level 4/5 automated driving solution
Computer vision specialist Mobileye and automotive manufacturer Delphi are teaming up to co-develop a turnkey SAE Level 4/5 automated driving solution for 2019. “The program will result in an end-to-end production-intent fully automated vehicle solution, with the level of performance and functional safety required for rapid integration into diverse vehicle platforms for a range of customers worldwide. The partners’ CSLP platform will be demonstrated in combined urban and highway driving at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and production ready for 2019,” the companies said.
IIoT: Wirepas and u-blox team up on scalable IIoT solutions
Wirepas and u-blox are partnering to offer an advanced decentralized radio communications solution for demanding industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications. “The IoT industry is still quite young and fragmented, making deployment of industrial IoT applications slow and complex for the end customers. The goal of u-blox and Wirepas is to make large scale, decentralized industrial IoT networks easy to deploy for their customers,” said Wirepas. Called NINA-B1, the small, stand-alone bluetooth low energy module addresses multiple vertical segments, including healthcare, connected buildings, manufacturing and telematics. “The NINA-B1 in combination with the Wirepas Connectivity software enables short time to market for easy-to-install, large scale, decentralized industrial IoT applications in segments such as lighting, sensor, asset tracking and beacons,” said Hakan Svegerud, head of product strategy, Short Range Radio, at u‑blox.
