Nokia spins off Home Control Center team as There Corporation, slips product into 2010

by Thomas Ricker posted May 28th 2009 at 8:51AM

Remember Nokia's Home Control Center launched in December with plans to send home automation product to retail by the end of 2009. Well, it's been upended today with Nokia bowing out of its own smart home activities and licensing the technology to the independent There Corporation -- a company that now employs Nokia's former Smart Home team. Unfortunately, we're now looking at the beginning of 2010 before we see the first solution dubbed Safety 360; a "security kit" for monitoring fire and water leakage alarms, intrusion detection, and energy consumption monitoring through the use of the Home Control Center device (pictured right), door/window sensors, motion, flood, and smoke detectors, and a "Binary Switch with electricity meter"... whatever that is. You know, at this point, we'd be happy for a big name consumer electronics company to sweep in, set a de facto standard, and kick the dozen or so proprietary and so-called "industry standards" to the curb so that we can finally take home automation mainstream. Maybe that'll be Z-Wave which is the only home automation communication standard listed under the device specs for ~~Nokia's~~ There's Home Control Center. The promise of the ubiquitous automated home has been floundering for decades now -- enough's enough.

Filed under: Household

Tags: home automation, home control center, HomeAutomation, HomeControlCenter, nokia, safety 360, Safety360, there, there coporation, ThereCoporation, z-wave

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hangfire @ May 28th 2009 9:08AM

first

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To: Hell @ May 28th 2009 9:13AM

Is its striking resemblance to an ice cream sandwich intentional?

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Duncan @ May 28th 2009 9:24AM

who cares about Nokia! Anyone that wants a reliable and affordable Home Automation system right now... just buy MiCasaVerde. I bought it back in November 2008 and think it's the best thing ever. It currently sells for $299.99 and handles all your home automation needs. You can even get an iPhone App if you want to control everything via your cell phone.

You guys should check it out!

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Duncan @ May 28th 2009 9:25AM

oh yeah... and MiCasaVerde uses Z-Wave

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starfury989 @ May 28th 2009 9:29AM

"monitoring fire and water leakage alarms" .... Gotta watch that fire leakage!

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hangfire @ May 28th 2009 9:35AM

thats called a "hot crotch"

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singj51 @ May 28th 2009 9:40AM

I did a report on Nokia. Good Company, we talked about their cell market strategies. Anyway I think every home will have one of these in the future.
http://jamesmsingleton.com

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zedster @ May 28th 2009 9:43AM

"Binary Switch with electricity meter"

uhhh... is that an on off switch (binary) with voltage control?

so it's a computer power supply?

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rtdunham @ May 28th 2009 9:54AM

mr richter: I tried to write you privately with some editing suggestions but the story didn't have an email link for you. so here goes:
line 2: "...plans to send THE home automation product to retail..."
line 2: sentence should have ended with a question mark, not a period.
line 5: "...a company that now EMPLOYS..." (not "that now employees...")
line 7: "the first solution COMMA dubbed Safety 360 COLON..."
line 14: "the dozen or so PROPRIETARY..." (not "propriety")
there are also a number of places commas should have been used and weren't, or were misused.

You seem to have a good grasp of the subject matter. And I like the tone you established in the report. Mistakes like the ones above can be worked around by readers--but they shouldn't have to be. There were simply too many mistakes for a SIX sentence piece. They interfere with what's good about your work.

Again, I'm sorry I was unable to share these with you privately.

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