By touting what it calls "Connected Machines," Verizon - known best for its cellular phones/mobile devices - is heralding the wave of the future of domotics aka smart home technology. Also referred to as "Machine-to-Machine" (M2M) technology, Connected Machines is a means - in Verizon's words - of "revolution[izing] the way business gets done."
With reachable-through-Verizon human experts fluent in M2M and ready to speak to curious potential clients, the wave of machines that can "talk" to each other and (somehow) to businesses - as purported by Verizon - will scale heights of an interconnected 50 billion devices by 2020, says CISCO IBSG (Internet Business Solutions Group).
One pertinent example of how the M2M ecospace will fuel the domotics revolution to come is by allowing ("smart") homeowners the freedom of having the utilities, security, and safety of their homes monitored, scanned, analyzed and ultimately controlled by the very electronic components interconnected within said domicile.
Verizon points to mega-retailer Lowes as a touchstone of the home M2M industry on the omnipresent grow.
"Lowe's Iris, a cloud-based smart home solution, allows homeowners to remotely monitor and manage their homes via a smart phone, tablet or computer using a broadband connection, or wireless connectivity from Verizon," said the company in a statement issued Monday, January 28th.
Such Lowe-Verizon systems allow homeowners to engage electronics in their home as an innovative attribute of their mobile devices that will remotely/automatically control everything from a residence's temperature to security involving M2M cameras.
Lowes' Iris, meanwhile, is an easy-to-install and accessible "one-stop solution for creating the smart home of your dreams." It is technology like the Iris that will establish smart homes as having the capacity for detecting a stranger outside of one's house or ensuring the home remains at optimal temperature throughout the night.
After installing the Lowes Iris hub in one's house, all M2M devices can be controlled easily by the owner's phone, tablet, etc. Because Iris is a "cloud," the aforementioned mobile device of said owner can easily "talk" to the home management system on constant alert.
Taking the M2M/domotics "revolution" to the truly mobile realm, Verizon's January 28th statement concludes with a mention of a demonstration at the 2013 CES that illustrates how vending machines the world over will soon be able to connect directly with one's banking account via smart phone (no more pawing through one's wallet or being left thirsty for not having change).
"Technology innovation is rapidly transforming how we interact with the world around us in new and exciting ways and connected machines are just getting revved up to make our lives more manageable, convenient and productive," says Verizon.
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