Singtel wants to get you started on a smart home subscription

Photo credit: Singtel.

Singaporean telco Singtel is jumping on the internet of houses bandwagon with Singtel SmartHome, it announced today.

It’s working with Hanman International, a Singaporean company that distributes Samsung’s Smart Doorlock range in Singapore.

SmartHome features a hub device called, appropriately, Smart Hub, that connects to and manages compatible gadgets like motion sensors, cameras, and plugs, and allows you to operate everything through a smartphone app.

Like Amazon Echo, it seeks to be your home’s central brains.

This way, you can do things like remotely lock your door, monitor your house, program your air conditioning so you can be greeted by the right temperature.

SmartHome is similar to things like Google Home and Amazon Echo that seek to be your intelligent abode’s central brains. Singapore-based startup Intraix has also developed a similar home brain called Klug.

Singtel has the edge of being able to offer SmartHub to its fiber broadband subscribers for a monthly subscription. The company offers two starter kits: one including the Smart Hub, a 16GB MicroSD card, and a contact sensor, and one that throws a Samsung Smart Lock in that same bundle. The kits will cost US$18 and US$32 respectively, on a two-year contract.

If you’re not a Singtel customer, the starter kits will set you back US$468 and US$906 respectively.

Singtel hopes Singapore’s high broadband and smartphone penetration will drive adoption of its SmartHome.

Converted from Singapore dollars. US$1 = S$1.39.