EnOcean eyes the consumer market
But today, no company pitch would be complete without having a go at IoT, trying to grab some attention from the app-driven consumer market. Hence, despite its 150+ manufacturing partners and over 350 EnOcean Alliance members deploying products across hundreds of thousands of buildings worldwide, the company is now eyeing the consumer market, seeking new sales channels.
One way to do this is to encourage engineers and hobbyists to think of new use cases, for example through design challenges such as the “Forget Me Not” competition run within the element14 Community.
The competition which ran this summer was inviting engineers to come up with consumer-oriented home monitoring and automation ideas, offering real-time updates on “to do” check lists via a smartphone or a tablet.
Among the 15 selected competitors to receive an initial design package was the grand prize winner Frederick Vandenbosch who got himself an all-expenses-paid trip to Electronica as well as a product bundle valued at more than $20,000 for its “Master Switch” and its “IoT Pet Care System”.
While the “IoT Pet Care System” collects data on the feeding habits of users’ pets and dispenses food and water rations according to those patterns (tracked through a mobile app which can also open or close windows for the beasts to come and go), the “Master Switch” system comes in the shape of a single, mountable wall switch that quickly disables all appliances or electronics not requiring a constant power source, when leaving home (the pet care system being excluded).
The competition organizers received in excess of 200 applications and project ideas, and surely some of these ideas will trickle down the EnOcean landscape to become consumer-grade products.
Catching up with newly appointed CEO at electronica, Dr. Wald Siskens, it was interesting to see that trend confirmed by other recent product launches, such as Philips’ Hue Tap, a four-function switch relying on EnOcean’s PTM 215Z rolling-code energy-harvesting switch module to send commands to the 2.5GHz Zigbee controlled lights.
Once configured, the switch offers a shortcut for the smartphone app, so you can obtain different preset light colours and brightness configurations with one tap (or you could switch them all off in one go).
It is with such applications that EnOcean is hoping to expand and possibly grow faster than with its building-automation activities alone. A serial entrepreneur with a past of directing technical start-ups (and also with a 17-year career at Philips from manufacturing research to product development and general management in the field of consumer electronics), Siskens wants to leverage consumers’ IoT creativity.
“Wild things are going to happen”, he said, pondering on the mass adoption of EnOcean’s energy harvesting switches. “We want to be part of the consumer IoT experience, with our solutions fitting in Nest-like hubs and all sort of connected appliances” he added, playing with the exemplary Hue Tap switch.
Visit EnOcean at www.enocean.com
Related articles:
Time to switch to free wireless protocol, says Arveni
Harvesting every bite of energy
EnOcean claims first middleware for energy harvesting wireless technology
EnOcean Alliance specifies intelligent commissioning of smart buildings
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
