Wyze Plays a Game of The Price is Right
Wyze’s AI-powered person detection for its security cameras is now going to be free as was originally promised when it first launched…or not…as the company is rolling out a pay-what-you-want business model. Person detection (Wyze’s feature that identifies humans, versus say animals or trees), with event videos was temporarily disabled last fall due to an abrupt end to their licensing deal with Xnor.ai (which was acquired by Apple). Now it is coming back, and Wyze is hoping that at least some users will help cover the costs. The company basically fell on the sword and informed its customers that monthly cloud costs are much higher than they originally anticipated and is now asking for help, allowing users to pay nothing, or make a monthly contribution in whatever amount they think the service is worth.
The NPD Take:
- Everlane has done it in apparel. Radiohead has done it with music. So what is to stop Wyze from trying it in tech? This will certainly be an interesting experiment in customer support and brand loyalty. If Wyze is able to cover, or at least recoup some of its costs, we’ll likely see them roll it out to other services. If it doesn’t work and Wyze has to force charge or cancel the service, there will surely be disgruntled customers. Already, some customers are probably looking for a more stable ecosystem and financially stable company.
Netflix Coming Soon to a Display Near You
Netflix content is now streaming on Google Nest Hub smart displays – and of course, the content can be controlled with voice commands. Google Assistant will be able to launch the service, play individual titles, and pause/play/skip forward. Display owners can also use Hub Max’s Quick Gestures to pause or resume video. YouTube (of course) has already been natively supported on Google’s displays, as has Hulu, Starz, CBS All Access, and Sling TV.
The NPD Take:
- Certainly Netflix has a vested interest to be available on any and all screens on which consumers consume content. Thanks to COVID-19, smart displays (particularly those with integrated cameras) have had some strong sales as of late, presumably thanks to their ability to video conference with friends and family in lieu of in real life visits. As the adoption rate of smart displays grows, the use cases for these devices should continue to expand – smart home control, communications, entertainment, productivity applications, etc. all making smart displays a true hub for the home.
Vivint and Chamberlain Partner Up
Vivint has partnered with Chamberlain to offer its myQ garage door tech as part of Vivint’s professionally installed smart home systems. Vivint customers with a compatible garage door opener who purchase the myQ Smart Garage Hub will be able to open, close, and check the status of their garage door from within the Vivint app, and receive activity alerts. Vivint customers who have a Vivint CarGuard device in their cars will be able to create a rule that automatically closes the garage door as they drive away. Smart speaker compatibility won’t be available at launch, but Vivint plans to add Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant support down the road.
The NPD Take:
- Smart garage door ownership is among the lowest of the various smart home devices that consumers have to choose from. Services like Amazon Key and Walmart’s InHome Delivery should help boost the popularity of these devices. Meanwhile, smart garage door openers are also the smart home device that consumers most often rely on a professional to install, so Vivint’s partnership helps to ease the burden.