Verizon (NYSE: VZ) continues to solidify its stance in the home automation and control market by joining the Z-Wave Alliance, a consortium focused on promoting Z-Wave standard for wireless home control.
Its membership in the alliance comes after the telco debuted Home Monitoring and Control in October, one that uses the Z-Wave standard to connect various devices such as door locks, thermostats, and security systems in the home.
Other members in the Z-Wave Alliance include a group of well known silicon vendors, security and home consumer electronic manufacturers including 2Gig Technologies, Danfoss, Evolve Guest Controls, Fakro, Sigma Designs, Ingersoll Rand, and Jasco Products.
The connected home solution enables consumers to monitor their home's energy usage and control electronics remotely via a traditional PC, smartphone, FiOS TV or their tablet computer.
While home control is still an arguably nascent opportunity, there has been a flurry of activity in this space not only by Verizon, but also by other fellow telcos including AT&T (NYSE: T) and Frontier (Nasdaq: FTR), and cable operators such as Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC). Outside of the U.S., activity is also picking up with major carriers like China Telecom and Europe's Swisscom.
With standards like Z-Wave helping create a large ecosystem of more affordable and interoperable products, service providers are turning to home control services is another way to increase average revenue per user (ARPU) and reducing subscriber churn.
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