Rebecca Day

The table is set for Thread Group-branded connected home products to reach store shelves during the second half of 2015, Sujata Neidig, its vice president-marketing and Freescale Semiconductor business development manager, told us Friday. The alliance, which said last week it had surpassed 80 members, is on a fast track to bring the connected home mainstream, Neidig said. Thread’s initial goal is to get the spec released, due for summer, and then to increase awareness of the protocol among developers, manufacturers and software developers, Neidig said. The group then will raise awareness among consumers, she said. Success will be launching products that are Thread-enabled and expanding the market from there, she said. The connected home has been talked about for many years, Neidig said, “and we want to enable it as soon as possible.” The alliance positions Thread as a simple, low-cost way to connect devices in the home. “We built Thread based on existing technologies,” Neidig said, adding that Thread runs on any existing 802.15.4 radio, of which “millions” are in homes today. “All you’re doing is adding the Thread software stack,” she said. “Theoretically, any device on the market today that has an 802.15.4 radio in it can be updated on the air via software to run Thread.” Thread’s position in the Internet of Things is that it’s targeted only to the connected home, it’s focused on connecting devices and enabling them to communicate, and it’s an IP-based standard in a mesh network configuration that’s low power and scalable, Neidig said. Founding companies include Nest, Samsung and Silicon Labs. Thread Group also announced last week its enabler program that’s designed to spur development among startups that don’t have the $2,500 funding necessary to join the group (see 1501280033).

Smartphone shipments vaulted to a record level in Q4 on seasonality, strong end-user demand and a “deep selection of models,” said preliminary data released Thursday from IDC. Vendors shipped 375 million units during Q4, according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, up 28 percent over the year-ago quarter and 12 percent growth over Q3. For the year, 1.3 billion smartphones shipped, IDC said, up 28 percent from 2013. Juniper Research said it was the first year global smartphone shipments exceeded 1 billion units, at 1.2 billion. It said the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sold more iPhones in China than in the U.S. for the first time. Despite closing in on Samsung in Q4, Apple had a worldwide market share of 15 percent for 2014. The iPhone was the star of Apple's most recent quarter, CEO Tim Cook said earlier this week (see 1501280031). Both market research firms cited a narrowing gap between No. 1 smartphone maker Samsung and rival Apple. IDC said Apple cut the volume gap to 600,000 units in Q4 and said continued success -- along with challenges to Samsung from low-cost, low-margin Android smartphone makers -- could enable Apple to overtake Samsung as shipment leader sometime during 2015. For Samsung to hold on to the top spot, “it will either have to accept lower margins from here forward or revamp its high-end strategy to compete with Apple,” IDC said. While year-over-year smartphone unit growth slowed from 40 percent in 2013 to 27 percent last year, “the market clearly has legs,” IDC said. Growth is forecast to decline to the mid-teens this year, “but opportunity exists” as a large segment of the world population hasn't yet acquired a mobile phone or stepped up to a smartphone, IDC said. "Mature markets have become increasingly dependent on replacement purchases rather than first-time buyers, which has contributed to slower growth,” Ramon Llamas, research manager, said. In emerging markets, first-time buyers have provided momentum to the smartphone market, but “the focus has shifted toward low-cost devices, creating a different dynamic for both global and local vendors,” Llamas said. Facing increased pressure from Apple at the high end and from Chinese manufacturers Huawei, Xiaomi, ZTE and others at the mid- to low end, Samsung is facing a “multi-front battle” and has streamlined operations and its product portfolio to position itself more competitively, IDC said. Apple sales were up 44 percent in the U.S. to 74.5 million and up 97 percent in Brazil, Russia, India and China, IDC said. It “remains to be seen how long Apple can sustain this runaway growth,” IDC said. Juniper said the reception of the iPhone 6 Plus indicates “a large potential for Apple phablets” and will likely accelerate the trend toward bigger smartphone screens.

Harman announced purchase agreements designed to position the company as a leading software provider for the connected space. CEO Dinesh Paliwal said on a Thursday conference call that Harman’s planned buys of Symphony Teleca, which provides software engineering and integration services globally, and Red Bend Software, provider of over-the-air (OTA) and cybersecurity software, will transform Harman into a “comprehensive products, systems and engineering services company” for the automotive, telecom, media, CE and healthcare markets. Harman will be able to “enable and enhance the connected lifestyle people want,” Paliwal said. Both companies have been service providers to Harman “for some time,” he said. The Red Bend transaction is valued at $170 million -- about $99 million in stock and $71 million in cash. The agreement to buy Symphony Teleca calls for a base purchase price of $780 million, including $382 million in cash and $166 million in Harman stock. The acquisitions will add some 8,000 engineers -- most from Symphony Teleca -- to Harman’s current engineering staff of 3,500 in software and 3,000 in hardware and industrial design, Paliwal said. Symphony Teleca, based in Silicon Valley, has a customer base including Adobe, Comcast, Google, Intel, Jaguar, Land Rover, Microsoft, Verizon and SiriusXM, Harman said. Symphony Teleca, which brings a platform for integrated services geared to converged markets, along with software engineering and integrated services for the connected experience, offers Harman “immediate scale and engineering services to accelerate connected car innovations,” Paliwal said. Symphony’s software development capabilities will enable Harman to integrate and leverage high-margin segments including the cloud, mobile devices, design and analytics, said Paliwal. He said Symphony is the “largest Android ecosystem scaling partner worldwide” as well as a strategic partner of Microsoft. Harman will be able to provide a “complete set of software defined services” around predictive analytics, cloud enablement, the Internet of Things gateway, turnkey mobile development and commercialization “to enable everything from autonomous driving to intelligent cities,” he said. Israeli company Red Bend -- with a customer base including AT&T, China Mobile, Huawei, Lenovo, LG, Samsung, Sprint, Telit and Verizon -- provides over-the-air software and hypervisor-based virtualization technology for cybersecurity applications. The technology is positioned to meet the demands of the connected car and can be a “prerequisite to autonomous driving,” Paliwal said. That includes the ability to deliver “safe, secure OTA updates” for on-board and non-Harmon automotive systems, “either embedded or downloaded,” Paliwal said.

The arrival of the Apple Watch this year will drive a 3,000 percent spike in shipments of wireless power receivers and transmitters for wearables, IHS Technology said. In a news release Thursday, IHS said it expects 2015 global revenue from shipments of wireless charging products for wearables to grow to more than $480 million, up from $15 million in 2014. By 2019, wireless charging devices for wearables will top $1 billion in revenue, it said.

Smartphone and tablet apps are becoming the norm during in-store shopping, said a Cisco study released at the National Retail Federation convention. Nearly half of U.S. consumers, and 42 percent in the U.K., said they’re using smartphones to augment their shopping experience, Cisco said. A third of U.S. shoppers are using independent shopping apps on a mobile device at least once a week, it said, and 55 percent of U.S. shoppers use retailer-specific apps while shopping. Lisa Fretwell, Cisco Consulting Services managing director-retail, said consumers are interested more in a “hyper-relevant” shopping experience than in a “hyper-personalized” experience, where they receive what they want when they want it versus a personalized experience of “knowing your name.” Consumers are becoming more accepting about giving up personal information as more connected devices enter their lives, Fretwell told us. To get offers relevant to them in a “value exchange,” consumers are increasingly willing to share purchase history and location data, she said. As part of the survey of 1,240 retail consumers in the U.S. and U.K. during October and November, Cisco tested shopping concepts with consumers to help determine the Internet of Things “value that is up for grabs” in terms of revenue “uplift” and employee productivity. Some 53 percent of consumers were interested in same-day home delivery of orders placed online and were willing to pay up to $5 per delivery, Cisco said. Four in 10 said they’d be willing to use a secure locker to pick up orders they had placed online, it said. Nearly three-fourths of respondents said they’d use a smartphone to scan products for customized offers and promotions in stores, and 63 percent were interested in “augmented reality apps” to help locate products in a store. Nearly 60 percent said they’d use augmented reality apps to get more product information such as online consumer reviews, it said. Six in 10 of those surveyed said they would like to scan barcodes on items while shopping to track items and pay at a self-service checkout terminal, said the study. Nearly half wanted to be able to store several payment cards on smartphones and smart watches so they could pay in stores by swiping the device at checkout, Cisco said,

The newly formed UHD Alliance will bring together “industry-defining companies from across the ecosystem that can create, master and deliver and display UHD content,” said Samsung Executive Vice President Joe Stinziano Monday.

LAS VEGAS -- Dish Network used its CES spotlight Monday to launch its anticipated over-the-top service and the first 4K video set-top box. CEO Joe Clayton, during a news conference at the Mandalay Bay, referred to Dish’s perennial role as “disrupter and pioneer” in the video industry as he announced the $20-per-month Stream Television service that will debut at month's end with live and VOD content delivered via OTT. The service is targeted at 18-35-year-old millennials whom the pay TV industry doesn’t currently reach, said Clayton. Sling Television CEO Roger Lynch broadened the target customer to include “cord-cutters, cord-nevers and cord-haters.”

Some 21 million smart home devices will be sold this year, and ADT and AT&T are the best known among consumers as service providers for such products, said a white paper released Friday from CEA and Parks Associates. The number of total devices will grow to 25 million next year, 30 million in 2016 and 36 million in 2017, the report said. Fueling the growth is the increased penetration of broadband in homes, said the white paper, predicting that by the end of this year, 79 percent of U.S. households will be connected to the Internet, and 80 percent of those will have a working home network. Broadband connectivity has led to a new generation of smart home devices -- born out of networked security systems taking advantage of broadband for surveillance purposes -- and that's changing how systems and devices are managed in the home, it said. No smart home device in a Parks consumer survey of 10,000 broadband households claimed more than 6 percent ownership, it said. Low awareness has been an obstacle to broader acceptance of smart home products, Parks said. Security companies have provided some awareness, and more has come from the “cool factor” of products like Nest’s Thermostat, it said. Among respondents who headed a household, roughly one in 10 was aware of smart home products or services, and fewer knew where to buy them, it said. Brand awareness among those surveyed was low, and not accurate. Respondents were asked to cite three manufacturers of smart home products, and 5 percent of respondents named Apple, which has not yet delivered product to the market. Nest followed Apple with 3 percent. ADT and AT&T ranked first and second with 6-7 percent awareness as smart home product manufacturers. When asked about service providers, 16 percent of respondents named ADT and AT&T, Parks said. For the most part, manufacturers in the product area “haven’t yet made a significant mark,” Parks said.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) adopted version 4.2 of the Bluetooth core specification, opening the door to the next generation of Bluetooth devices featuring enhanced security features, faster speed and IP connectivity. An NSA report had outlined a “diverse set” of vulnerabilities with Bluetooth communications. Bluetooth attacks involve “identity detection, location tracking, denial of service, unintended control and access of data and voice channels, and unauthorized device control and data access,” the NSA said, "due to headset profiles’ support for powerful telephony signal commands" and users’ weak passwords such as 0000.

IHS’s 2014 forecast for worldwide unit sales of 58 million wireless charging receivers and 20 million wireless charging transmitters is going to fall short when the company releases figures for the year, said Ryan Sanderson, IHS analyst, in an interview Thursday. But numbers will be better than IHS anticipated midyear after CES and Mobile World Congress didn’t yield the expected number of new smartphones or tablets with wireless charging capability, Sanderson said. While the industry will “struggle” to reach estimates for this year, IHS expects to still see significant growth for the wireless charging market over 2013, he said. Sanderson expects growth in the wireless charging market to get a boost going forward from the wearables category. The Moto 360 smart watch has Qi inductive wireless charging built in, and Apple CEO Tim Cook referenced wireless charging for the Apple Watch at the wearable's product announcement in September. A caveat to wireless charging for wearables derives from the category name itself, Sanderson said. “It’s called a wearable, so the consumer shouldn’t really have to take it off to charge it.” Technologies today require users to do that, either placing the wearable on a surface or near a transmitter for charging. That will change in the near future with far-field wireless charging over a distance of as much as 30 feet, Sanderson said. Energous, with WattUp technology that won a CES Innovations award for 2015, announced this week it has joined the Power Matters Alliance and completed initial FCC Part 15 certification testing for its WattUp receivers. Energous’ technology delivers “scalable power” using the same radio bands as a Wi-Fi router, according to company literature, and allows “meaningful, useable power” that users can tap into while roaming so the device doesn’t have to be plugged in or positioned on a mat for charging, it said. The wireless charging market began slowly in 2014 but picked up midyear with the introduction of products with embedded Qi receivers, including the LG G3, Google Nexus 6 and, more recently, the Nokia 830, which has a receiver that’s both PMA- and Qi-enabled, Sanderson said. He said he “wouldn’t be surprised” to see more developments in multimode, multidevice wireless charging products. On the likelihood of a unified standard, Sanderson said that without A4WP (Alliance for Wireless Power) charging products in the market, “it’s not a level playing field” for consumers to compare products and decide which technologies they prefer. A4WP had expected to have Rezence products in the market by year-end, but that hasn’t happened. A spokesman for A4WP didn’t comment. Over the next couple of years, Sanderson expects to see much more multimode and multistandard support for the tightly coupled technology -- Qi, PMA and Rezence -- as manufacturers look to safeguard themselves in a multihorse field.