AT&T’s Connected Life Platform Is a Second Try in the Smart-Home Space Leave a comment
AT&T is taking a second crack on the sensible house. After sunsetting its Digital Life service in 2022—powered by the now-defunct 3G community—the corporate is launching a brand new smart-home safety platform known as Linked Life, this time in partnership with smart-home gamers Google and Abode.
Beforehand accessible as a pilot program in choose markets, AT&T Linked Life is rolling out nationwide beginning immediately. The imaginative and prescient behind it’s to simplify smart-home setup. As an alternative of shopping for numerous smart-home gadgets and utilizing a number of apps to attach them, you should purchase considered one of two kits straight from AT&T’s Linked Life web site—the Starter Package ($11 per thirty days for 36 months) or the Superior Package ($19 per thirty days for 36 months). You can too pay upfront for the kits at $399 and $699, respectively.
Every consists of Google Nest smart-home merchandise and safety sensors, with the Superior Package providing extra sensors, a safety keypad, and a Nest Cam safety digital camera. (Google confirmed the Nest merchandise on provide are usually not the newest gadgets the corporate launched not too long ago.) You will use the Linked Life app and the Google Residence app to set every part up, although you can too get assist from a technician when you do not need to DIY.
Google says the platform leverages Google Residence’s software programming interface (API) to combine Google’s sensible house gadgets into the Linked Life app, and after setup, customers can solely depend on the Linked Life app to view livestreams and handle gadgets.
There are two subscription tiers: Important ($11 per thirty days) or Skilled ($22 per thirty days). They provide entry to options like 30-day occasion video historical past and clever alerts, although the Skilled plan features a US-based monitoring service from Abode that may dispatch police and medical companies throughout emergencies. The system is designed in an effort to pause skilled monitoring when you do not want it, reasonably than being locked right into a contract.
AT&T is touting the Mobile Backup function in Linked Life: If your private home web goes offline, this function will hold your smart-home gadgets working by routing information by way of AT&T’s wi-fi community through the Linked Life {hardware}, and there is a battery backup for the hub in case energy goes out. This was a cornerstone function of AT&T’s previous Digital Life service, however mobile backup is now a staple in lots of smart-home safety programs, like these from SimpliSafe or ADT.
You must be an AT&T buyer to make use of the Linked Life platform, although it would not matter you probably have a wi-fi cell plan or house web. This implies the potential buyer base for these new smart-home companies is very large; AT&T has 119 million wi-fi cell prospects and is the most important supplier of fiber house web within the US, with greater than 10 million prospects.
