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In AT&T's vision of the future, your home may be run by a tablet
Atlanta (CNN) -- Imagine a near future
a single touch on your tablet or smartphone will start
coffee maker, lock your doors, turn on (or off)
lights and open a window.
Or maybe you'd use the same gadget to
the doorbell and talk to a visitor,
if you're half a world
. Or maybe you'd get an e-mail telling you when the kids are
from school.
Oh, and the the same connectivity will
power a home-security system that, in
, gives your doors, windows and most anything
in your house an Internet address so
can monitor and control them digitally.
AT&T says all that and
is on the way next year. Called "Digital Life," the system is the telecommunications giant's entree
the world of home security,
industry the company says was ripe
some serious innovation.
Digital Life will use sensors
assign individual Internet protocol, or IP, addresses to everything
a window to a refrigerator to, yes, a coffeemaker. Once linked
, they can then be controlled
by Apple, Android, BlackBerry and Windows devices.
The company says anything from a GPS device
a medicine bottle can be linked in
the system, which could have implications in fields
from fitness to independent living.
AT&T will be
some trials this summer in Atlanta and Dallas, and say subscriptions
the home-automation service will be available by the end
next year. No prices have
announced, although AT&T says
will be "extremely competitive."
Glenn Lurie, AT&T's president of Emerging Enterprises and Partnerships, sat
with CNN Tech recently in Atlanta to answer questions
the system, which he calls "disruptive" and a quantum leap
competitors in both the security and wireless industries will be
-pressed to match.
Here's a condensed version of
conversation:
On why a company
for wireless service entered the home-security market:
This is a business that's very fragmented. It's a business
the biggest player has 6 million subscriptions. Nobody
that business has an all-IP network. When we launched Uverse,
is now obviously very successful, people said, "
a minute -- AT&T in the TV business? What are
doing?"
We look
industries that are disruptable. This happened to be
. This is one that's kind of ripe
someone to come in and really move it
. We also look for industries that have old technology, that were just
of sitting back and living
of old technology and this was one of those as
.
When you
up in the morning and leave your home, what do you
? In my house, you get up, we
sure the doors are locked, that the kids didn't leave one open. You turn the alarm
. You turn a certain light on or
. You do all that, then
go and leave.
Well, that's a thing of the
. Now ... you would go on your phone
you're walking into the garage, driving
, and you would tap your program button, which you've
told your house what you want
to do. "I want the doors locked. Make sure they're
. I want all the garages closed. Make sure they're closed. I want the alarm put
. I want this light turned on. I want the thermostat turned down."
It allows you to control your life, but you sit
and do it once and you're done.
me, that is the next level of that foundation. That is just totally cool.
When you think
alerts, you think about a sensor under
water heater that tells you to turn it off. It senses your water is
used at a greater rate than it should. Or if a window is broken. You really don't
to know if you don't have milk. [A time-honored prediction
home-automation services]. That's a silly scenario.
But the scenario here is,
all those refrigerators are basically computers, it senses your ice maker is
to break and asks you if you want it to
an appointment for you. Those kinds of things are futuristic, but very simple
do.
Adapted and abridged from: CNN, July 9, 2012.
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