O2 wants to help you spread the cost of building a smart home
Bundles start from £20 per month.
Although there are plenty of smart home solutions, deciding which platform to back can be hard. Do you invest in a product from a major brand like Google's Nest or choose a startup that cares more about its products and services than parting you from more of your money? It's a problem that UK companies like British Gas' Hive have tried to solve with its mix of smart appliances, but mobile carrier O2 thinks it might have the solution. The operator today launched O2 Home, a new smart home subscription service that lets customers spread the cost of devices but also the support they may require.
O2 Home consists of three customisable 24-month packages. There's Comfort, a £30 per month package that offers a Tado smart thermostat, two smart plugs and one presence sensor. For the same price, you can ditch the smart heating option and choose Home View, a security-focused package that comes bundled with Samsung camera, a wide view camera, one open and close sensor and one presence sensor. The last of the three is Home Connect, a £20 bundle that offers two presence sensors, two open and close sensors and two smart plugs. All of the packages come with O2's own app-controlled Smart Hub as standard.
O2 Home doesn't stop there, though. Each of the products can be bolted on to existing packages to fill any gaps in your connected home. You can choose from products like flood sensors, Powerline adaptors, indoor sirens and even Yale's keyfree smart lock. The operator has decided not to incorporate those additional devices into its plans, which ramps the price up considerably. However, if you do invest in a camera solution, the monthly price covers 250MB of cloud-based video storage (enough for ten 15-second clips and 250 snapshots), 24-month device warranty and ten profiles for you and your family.
Initially, O2 Home will be available in selected parts of London before rolling out across the UK. To incentivise customers, the company is offering O2 Home free for the first year, as long as you order between September 1st and September 14th. They aren't ready just yet but you'll also be able to check out its installations in one of four O2 Home demo spaces, located in Westfield White City, Tottenham Court Road, Kingston and Watford.
