The Friday news about Google / Nest acquisition of Revolv spells one word to me: desperation. Nest is of course desperate for talent acquisition. Tim Enwall's team is certainly valuable to Nest. On the other hand Revolv must have been desperately looking for a much needed pivot. The overhyped, overpromised and underdelivered multi - protocol hub probably never recorded significant traction. It had not much to offer. No state machine, just a pass-through command translation between a few radio protocols (but notably no Bluetooth Smart!) has been not enough to generate wide adoption of the system. At Seed we almost tried the same but soon realized the market for smart home hubs has been very limited to date, and competition was mounting. Simply put: not enough smart devices out there yet, to create a significant market for hubs.
A problem? Or an opportunity?
Not many smart devices on the market is a problem for a hub company indeed. But is an enormous opportunity for those, who help building smart devices. Consumers want them, manufacturers have to have them. For many this is a chasm too wide to cross without help. At Seed, this is our mission: guiding the manufacturers to the smart future: helping with protocol selection, upgrading the assembly lines, all to seed the market with millions of smart devices in many categories. Only then the hub makers will thrive.
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