EchoStar is planning on expanding its set top range firmly into the smart home with the new Sage home controller and device ecosystem. The company was teasing the unit, which is designed to plug into an existing pay-TV set top, but has so far not decided on a final specification or business model. Vice President of Engineering David Lett talked us through Sage at IBC, and said that the company was targeting a launch sometime in the first half of 2015.
The box itself is not a full sized set top, but a little larger than something like a Roku or Apple TV. It features HDMI In and Out, an Ethernet port and 2 USB ports – which will support a USB cellular modem for backup connectivity should the broadband line fail, with backup power offered by AA batteries. With its own remote control, the user can watch TV just as they would with EchoStar’s other products. But this remote control has extra buttons, which will bring up the Sage Home UI, or go straight to the required smart home subdivision.
With a single push the UI would pop up onto the screen and shrink the TV picture into the top right quarter. Lett stressed that this interface would allow you to still follow along with the televised content on screen while interacting with your smart home, and we’d have to agree with him. It looked like a very simple system to operate; just the sort of thing that could be offered as a value-add product to service customers.
The devices that were on show and could be linked to the box included the usual range of light switches, light bulbs, motion sensors, a Honeywell thermostat, a Yale smart Lock and D-Link security cameras. The box itself contains ZigBee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth Low Energy and WiFi radios – which surprised us initially and seems to lend credibility to the DIY and ease-of-use subject that we put to Lett. There’s enough radios in there to cover almost all the popular smart home products.
Sage is a learning system, which will adapt to the home’s usage. This will allow it to more accurately automate or predict what needs to be done in the home, especially in terms of lighting and HVAC, but it will also know when to alert the occupants to some abnormal behavior. Motion in the basement, gas boilers running at capacity but the home not heating up, etc.
A particularly useful and innovative feature of the Sage system is the way it includes the installation instructions for any of the devices that are Sage certified. This means that if the system ends up being bundled to service consumers, those customers would be able to go to a store, buy compatible certified products, bring them home, and be shown how to install them on their TV – and then have that information beamed to their phone in case the installation location is out of eyeshot. That’s certainly a very convenient feature, especially if you are trying to market this ecosystem to the 80% of US homes that currently don’t have a home security package – where the two most likely deterrents are the upfront costs of purchase and installation, and the complexity of operating the system once you’ve paid or subscribed to it.
Another part of the complexity concern is addressed by the Rules engine in the Sage box. Put simply, this is a natural language installation process that lets you assign a device to a location, and then tell the box what you want this device to do. For instance, turn on the hall and living room lights when motion is detected on the porch. Rules can be programmed to the remote control, so that manual modes can be engaged – such as a rule to dim the living room lights.
The security cameras can also push their video image to the screen, so that if they are triggered by motion, the owner can see the feed on the TV or phone – allowing them to take further action if needed. This could give the viewer a look at who is approaching the front door, perhaps to get hold of the dog before he makes a break for it, or in the worst case scenario, spot a home invader or missionary.
Lett pointed out that nearly all of the police calls generated by automatic alarm systems are false, but that a system like this (which is self-monitored) will allow for only the serious calls to be forwarded to the police. Lett said this would improve the credibility and response to alerts originating from the Sage system. Video footage from the security cameras will be stored in the Sage box and in the cloud system too – one of the benefits of moving into the smart home market instead of trying to build it from the ground up.
The back end architecture is all based on the existing Sling infrastructure that EchoStar already has in place, and there are plans to add the Sage tag to other Dish products, in a similar manner to how the Dish Hoppers have Sling functionality – giving it immediate access to a pay-TV operator and its customers.