Nokia announced an open smart home platform yesterday. What makes this move interesting to me is not so much the home automation stuff (although that is also interesting development), but the fact that the platform is basically an open Linux-based WiFi (801.11n) router platform.
If Nokia manages to keep this platform as open as the Maemo platform, it enables developers and third parties to participate very efficiently into innovating new services for home environment.
I also find the business aspects and opportunities of this move interesting. Although Nokia does not mention it anywhere, this kind of home gateway devices would extend the Nokia's possible service platforms straight to homes of the consumers and since the device already has WiFi capability, could this also be a move in the future to offload mobile Internet traffic to broadband connections instead of cellular networks? This remains to be seen, but it is interesting anyway.
Friday 28 November 2008
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