Palo Alto, Calif. — Smart-house platform provider ROC-Connect has entered the North American market following last year’s launch in Europe and Latin America and has turned to the former VP/general manager of Lowe’s smart-home division to lead the rollout.
The ex-Lowe’s executive is Kevin Meagher, tapped by ROC as senior VP of business development. He developed Iris, the smart-home platform exclusive to Lowe’s.
ROC will offer turnkey solutions to manufacturers, retailers, service providers such as telcos and utilities, health-care facilities and insurance providers. The solutions will deliver “all your company needs to create a smart-home solution for your customers,” the company’s website says.
ROC offers a multi-radio gateway/hub intended for DIY installation in the home along with Cloud services. System monitoring and control is available through an app for iOS and Android devices and from web browsers.
Like such platform providers as Alert Me and Zonoff, ROC could enable retailers to offer a retailer-branded home-automation system that connects to third-party home-automation devices. For Sodimac, the largest home-improvement retailer in Latin America, ROC deployed a complete smart-home solution under the retailer’s Ozom brand, Meagher told TWICE. “ROC can help with the provision of a complete product set as a white-labelled solution or alternatively, through relationships with all the leading manufacturers, help to create a portfolio of leading brands.”
The ROC-Connect hub will offer “all the leading protocols to network devices in the home,” Meagher also said. The hub will be “managed by a Cloud platform through which consumers can leverage different applications to monitor and control their homes.”
With the hub and app, consumers will receive notifications on their smartphones when doors, windows, or cabinets are being opened; receive alerts when sensors detect smoke, carbon monoxide, or water leaks; check security cameras; and operate lights. More than one venue can be controlled on site and remotely from the same app.
“Without drawing a specific comparison to any current [platform provider],” Meagher continued, “our platform provides a more complete turnkey solution that enables partners to rapidly deployed smart-home solutions that can scale to embrace the broadest range of devices quickly and easily.”
Like the Zonoff and Alert Me platforms, ROC-Connect will enable retailers to offer their own-brand systems, but “there are some fundamental differences,” he said. “In particular, ROC-Connect provides a complete developer ecosystem that allows retailers and service providers to develop their own applications and unique consumer experiences.” The platform “also provides some unique ways in which partners — for example, retailers and insurance companies — can work together to provide yet more value to consumers.”
