Dawn of a new smart home era: launch of the QIVICON platform

* First package offers from EnBW, Miele, Deutsche Telekom and Bitron Home
* 25 partner companies have already joined the QIVICON Smart Home platform
* Connected home a major focus of Deutsche Telekom’s stand

Together with partners for the connected home, Deutsche Telekom will be presenting QIVICON at its stand at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. Initiated by Deutsche Telekom, QIVICON is an alliance of leading industrial companies in Germany. Its goal is to drive forward the topic of smart home applications and develop vendor-independent solutions for customers. Together with its partners EnBW, eQ-3, Miele and Samsung, Deutsche Telekom is developing a platform to serve the areas of energy efficiency, security and convenience at home for people of all ages.

The first offerings for the smart home platform will be launched in the fall and offered by the partners together with the QIVICON Home Base. Providers include EnBW, Miele, Deutsche Telekom and Bitron Home, a brand of the Urmet Group. QIVICON will also be presenting additional new partners: Belkin, 4-noks and PaX, bringing together companies in the energy, security, comfort and healthcare fields at its market launch.

Simple, standardized controls
QIVICON unifies the smart home products from a wide range of companies in different sectors. The QIVICON Home Base - which works with any broadband connection, regardless of the telecommunications provider - serves as the central unit to coordinate all smart home devices and functions within the household. And all as simple as possible. Users can operate and control their individual devices with apps from the QIVICON partners for smartphones, tablets and PCs, both at home and on the go. Any QIVICON-compatible device, such as radiator thermostats, smoke detectors, blinds, lamps and household appliances, can be controlled. Customers who buy a product from a partner company together with the QIVICON Home Base can add more devices and apps later, step by step, as needed. This extensibility makes it easy for anyone to get started in the smart home era – from inexpensive starter packages to the complete connected home.

Wide spectrum of attractive offerings
“QIVICON represents the continuation of our platform strategy,” explains Thomas Kiessling, Chief Product and Innovation Officer at Deutsche Telekom. “We can leverage our strengths as an operator of open ecosystems and link them with the industry expertise and innovative capabilities of our partners – including many household names. QIVICON demonstrates that ensuring the ease of use of such independent platforms is one of our core competencies. Of course, we benefit from our years of experience with our huge customer base.”

“Together with our partners, we have developed a unique platform, one that I can call a milestone without any hesitation,” adds Holger Knöpke, who is responsible for the Smart Home platform at Deutsche Telekom. “It will make life in the home easier, helping save money and making homes safer. 25 partners from a wide range of sectors have already joined the platform, and even more will be added in the coming weeks and months. The more partners who offer their products and services on the platform, the more scenarios consumers can use, making QIVICON all the more attractive.” The partners also reap a multitude of benefits from the platform. Each partner company can pursue its objectives through its own product, pricing, communications and sales strategy, while helping to shape the market together with other strong partners. Deutsche Telekom is the reliable partner at their side.

Smart Home from EnBW
Energy provider EnBW will launch three product packages in the 4th quarter to control lighting, appliances and heating, as a start in the energy management of the future. Further intelligent energy management solutions will follow, based on energy and device transparency, device controls and device communications. With these offerings, customers can lay the cornerstone for the smart home – featuring convenience, fun and the sustainable, efficient use of energy.

Smart Home from Miele
Miele will be launching a new app on the QIVICON Smart Home platform in early 2014 that will make it possible to control and check the status of Miele home appliances on the go. The Miele product program will be characterized by its broad scope, from washing machine and dishwasher to stove.

Smart Home from Deutsche Telekom
The new smart home solution from Deutsche Telekom connects the wide variety of technical devices in the household - including heating, lighting, windows, doors and smoke detectors – that users can operate and control with an app. This reduces energy costs while improving living comfort and security at the same time. The Telekom Smart Home Package will be available from selected Telekom Shops and online starting in the fall of 2013.

Smart Home from URMET
Under the Bitron Home brand, the Italian URMET Group will launch its first solutions in the areas of energy, security and convenience starting in the fall. The starter packages, including the QIVICON Home Base, will be available through a variety of distribution channels, including specialist retailers and online.

Many offerings from other QIVICON partners are also under development on the QIVICON platform and will be launched over the course of 2014.

All offers in the online shop under www.qivicon.de
Visitors can find out, for example, which products are available from which brands and where to buy them, whether in the QIVICON online shop itself, the online shops of the respective brands, from retailers in the relevant sectors or selected Telekom Shops.

The new partners
Founded in California in 1983, Belkin develops products that utilize the possibilities of modern technology to make people’s lives better. Belkin’s WeMo product family makes it possible to control electronic household devices at home or on the go - switching them on and off or controlling them through (time-based) rules. Belkin’s WeMo Switch and WeMo Switch Motion detector, combined with QIVICON, make it easy to achieve perfect household automation.

The Italian company 4-noks offers systems for monitoring, controlling and reducing energy consumption. With easy-to-use plug&play products that make it possible to measure the energy consumption of individual devices, 4-noks - in combination with QIVICON - helps smart homes to achieve even greater energy efficiency.

PaX, with its four plants in Germany, has been a pioneer for innovative windows and doors made of wood, wood/aluminum, aluminum and plastics for more than 25 years. Connecting PaX products to QIVICON with PaXsmart opens entirely new possibilities for integrating windows and doors in standardized smart home controls. PaX takes us closer to achieving the vision of an energy-efficient, safe, comfortable, smart home.

Visit Deutsche Telekom’s stand in hall 6.2 at the IFA trade show in Berlin from September 6-11 for a live experience of our products and services. Deutsche Telekom’s entire presence at the trade fair is carbon-neutral - all CO2 emissions generated in setting up and operating the stand are fully offset by carbon-reduction projects abroad.

About Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom is one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies with 144 million mobile customers, 32 million fixed-network lines and over 17 million broadband lines (as of June 30, 2013). The Group provides fixed-network, mobile communications, Internet and IPTV products and services for consumers, and ICT solutions for business and corporate customers. Deutsche Telekom is present in some 50 countries and has over 231,000 employees worldwide. The Group generated revenue of EUR 58.2 billion in the 2012 financial year - over half of it outside Germany (as of December 31, 2012).

About QIVICON
Initiated by Deutsche Telekom, QIVICON is an alliance of leading industrial companies in Germany. Its goal is to drive forward the topic of smart home applications and develop vendor-independent solutions for customers. Together with its partners EnBW, eQ-3, Miele and Samsung, Deutsche Telekom is developing a platform to serve the areas of energy efficiency, security and convenience at home for people of all ages. A constantly growing number of further partner companies will also use the QIVICON platform for their smart home offerings. For more information about QIVICON and partners, visit www.qivicon.de