CES: Verizon To Launch FiOS 'Smart Home' Service

Verizon will debut a home-management service for FiOS next year that will let customers remotely lock or unlock their doors, check video cameras, adjust thermostats and power settings, and control lights -- via a smartphone, PC or FiOS TV widget.

Beginning in January, Verizon plans to initiate a pilot program for Home Monitoring and Control in New Jersey. The telco has yet to determine locations but the trial will include more than two dozen homes, spokesman Alberto Canal said.

Verizon expects to commercially launch the service in the first half of 2011; it hasn't announced pricing details.

The telco will demo the service -- developed with home-control software startup 4Home -- at next week's 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Verizon was an investor in Sunnyvale, Calif.-based 4Home, which was acquired in December by Motorola Mobility.

Also at CES, Verizon plans to demo an HD videoconferencing service for FiOS using Cisco Systems' $600 "umi" system sometime in 2011.

The New Jersey homes selected for the Home Monitoring and Control test will be outfitted with an energy reader, smart appliance switches and thermostats, a smart power strip, a smart door and window locks, motion sensors, a pan-and-tilt camera, and fixed indoor and outdoor cameras.

"We're giving customers a remote control for their homes that they can
use to cut CO2 emissions and their energy bills and give them anytime,
anywhere access and control of their homes," Verizon vice president of
product management Eric Bruno said in a statement. "The concept of the
connected home has been discussed for many years, and now Verizon's
high-IQ networks are making that concept a reality by converting
customers' homes into bandwidth-rich ecosystems that enable a wide
variety of customizable options."

A video with an overview of Verizon's Home Monitoring and Control service is available here.

Verizon touts the fastest residential broadband widely available in the U.S. with its 150/35 Mbps FiOS Internet service launched in November.