INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
As companies like Google, Amazon and Apple hone their strategies to build the brain that helps you use the smart home of the future, where a
new wave of internet-enabled appliances, climate and security systems and other connected objects can be connected and controlled through
their hubs, a new smart home startup called Level Home is emerging from stealth today with a big packet of funding, a sales deal, and a hope
of bringing something new to the table, by focusing on ways of rethinking old things you own already, starting with the lock on your front
(heh) with the Level Lock is that you door will not look any different after you install it
But linking it up with HomeKit, you can then use an Apple iPhone or Watch to unlock it (or, you can also still use the physical keys that
come with the lock to open the door)
million in funding in the years that it has been in stealth.Investors include a firm called Hut 8 Ventures (not connected to Hut 8
increasing the ways in which it can connect with shoppers beyond visits to its large retail locations, and while Level Home is not
disclosing any details yet on how it will work with its strategic investors, you could imagine its involvement having more than one
touchpoint.It could be a very strong sales channel for the Level Lock through its many well-visited retail locations.But it could also be
sold potentially as part of a bigger service offering, in competition with something like Amazon Key, where Walmart offers smart locks to
its customers as part of a bigger home delivery business.Walmart started down this road back in 2017, when it first partnered with smart
lock maker August to test in-home delivery
Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Development and Partnerships, Walmart, in a statement
brand in the market, and the area of smart home hardware is also very crowded already.Part of the reason for the leap may be because of the
consumer companies including Microsoft, Starbucks and Apple
want home automation out of the mainline of what normally happens
cotton onto this progression of logic
locks without large electronic objects attached to them.Indeed, the smart home market has not been a home run so far, but it shows some
In Europe, only around 11% of homes have smart home devices in them (not counting phones)
In the US, the figure is only slightly higher, at 15%
what is on offer today.That spells opportunity for the smart home entrepreneurs, and investors willing to take the leap to back them.Martin
and Goto said that they have a pipeline of several other products that they will be working on, although for now, they are keeping quiet on
alternative versions of the smart home: to quietly make our lives at home easier and more connected, but without any massively perceptible
things in the way that Level Home has done with the dead bolt, or potentially a kind of skeuomorphic approach, but for physical objects
(maybe even in a tip of the hat to their early Apple pedigree)
Feder, Managing General Partner, Lennar Ventures, in a statement
The Level Lock will transform the smart lock category by allowing home builders to offer innovation without having to compromise on their
