Last year at CES, Zonoff’s demo suite was full of the Staples Connect hardware they power along with a variety of familiar brands like Lutron and Jawbone. This year, several other friends joined the party including the Google Nest smart thermostat and a souped-up, Sonos-fighting Bose sound system.
The desire for Nest integration is obvious, although this is the first we’ve seen the smart thermostat connected to the Zonoff platform. So while Zonoff may not yet “Work With Nest” … they clearly work with Nest. Bose system support is perhaps slightly less obvious, but it makes sense when you contemplate pairing music or talk radio with other sensors tied to lighting and motion detection. Put a speaker in your bathroom, and you can set the music to turn on when you open the door in the morning. Put one in the kitchen, and you can program it to play NPR when you head in to make dinner in the evening.
Both the Nest and the Bose system integration (which we assume will officially be announced and released at a later date) should also play well with the new Modes feature Zonoff introduced last week. You probably don’t need your heat to cycle on in the mornings if you’re away on vacation. That’s okay. Put the system in Vacation Mode. You probably also don’t want NPR playing in the kitchen if you’re sneaking in for a midnight snack. That’s okay, set the system to Sleep Mode.
Also in Zonoff news, we’ve heard from multiple sources that ADT is a new investor in the company. That’s a big win, and we’re hoping for official confirmation soon… along with some sort of technical and/or marketing integration.