Motorola enters the connected home market through the acquisition of 4Home

Connected home platform developer 4Home was acquired by Motorola today (12/01/10). 4Home will now become a part of Motorola’s Mobility division; terms of the deal have not yet been announced.

4Home’s solutions include energy management, healthcare monitoring, home security monitoring and entertainment management. 4Home, a Sunnyvale, CA based company, was founded in 2005 and has been a regular participant at Parks Associates’ CONNECTIONS conference. To date the company has raised over $9 million in venture capital funding from Pond Ventures, Parker Price and Verizon Ventures.

Motorola is one of the leading Set-Top-Box (STB) brands and we predict that 4Home’s platform will be embedded on their (Motorola’s) STBs enhancing the company’s offering. We expect more details on the deal to be available soon.

In our opinion this is another great example of a market mover, such as Motorola, building the foundation for the connected home systems and services market to blossom. We have repeatedly stated that there are multiple paths to the connected home. 4Home developed a robust platform and Motorola is well-positioned to deploy it. Other recent examples of companies with market clout getting behind the connected home solutions include cable MSOs Comcast and Rogers, both deploying services based on the iControl/uControl (a recent merger) platform(s).

The bottom line for industry participants is that these firms, and others we expect to hear from shortly, will build awareness of the capabilities monitoring and control technologies can add to consumers’ lifestyles. 2011 is shaping up to be an exciting year for the connected home systems and services market. So much so, that we are formulating a new market intelligence program aimed at characterizing and quantifying opportunities in this arena for manufacturers, service providers, utilities, retailers and a host of technology enablers. Stay tuned