Icontrol to Provide Security, Home Automation Platform to Monitronics Dealers

Monitronics inks deal with Icontrol for providing security and home automation platform (SHaaS) to 600 dealers.

Icontrol Networks, provider of Smart Home as a Service (SHaaS) platforms for such large providers as ADT (Pulse), Comcast/Xfinity and a number of other MSOs, can now add Monitronics to its roster of powerful partners.

Owned by Ascent Capital Group, Monitronics is America’s second-largest residential security monitoring station, with more than 1 million monitored accounts and $44.1 million in recurring monthly revenue (RMR).

The company says it will offer Icontrol services as “yet another attractive option” for its 600 authorized dealers, meaning it’s just another offering. Monitronics isn’t playing favorites with hardware or software. So it’s really not a big deal until or unless Monitronics turns other vendor partners into second-class citizens, which doesn’t seem likely.

Another SHaaS option currently “offered” to Monitronics dealers is Alarm.com with security and home automation hardware from Interlogix (Simon) and Nortek’s 2Gig (Go Control).

Monitronics also supports Honeywell panels and the company’s Total Connect SHaaS service.

Icontrol has never had a mechanism to serve smaller independent dealers until recently when it launched Icontrol One – essentially the same platform that ADT (not the cable companies) has been using for years, but with an infrastructure to support smaller installation companies and the people (two hot shots from ADT) to run the program.

Icontrol has not yet specified its hardware partners for Icontrol One, but it lists 2Gig, Interlogix and DSC on its Website. Both 2Gig and DSC already support Icontrol via Telular’s Telguard, whose SHaaS is powered by Icontrol.

Icontrol’s partnership with Monitronics doesn’t mean all that much to dealers. Central stations like Monitronics don’t care and may not even know which SHaaS provider a dealer is partnering with. The alarm signals get to the central station in the same way as any other alarm panel that isn’t connected to an interactive service like Icontrol.

RELATED: (Icontrol Targets Alarm.com, Honeywell With New Security & Home Automation Service

Industry sources tell CE Pro, SSI‘s sister publication, that the value of such partnerships accrues to the central station, which typically receives monetary or other incentives to promote the partner; dealers might get discounts through the partnership as well, much like they would receive from other types of buying groups.

“One of the great benefits of the Monitronics Dealer Program is our dealers’ freedom to choose from quality products from the best manufacturers and distributors out there,” Bruce Mungiguerra, SVP operations for Monitronics, said in a statement. “We want to give them attractive options in the products they offer, and Icontrol is an exciting new way for our dealers and our customers to take advantage of the latest security and smart home technology.”

We assume, then, that Monitronics’s partnership with Alarm.com isn’t going away.

Update on Monitronics and Icontrol

Both Monitronics and Icontrol will be exhibiting at ISC West2015.

Monitronics might be speaking about its recent acquisition of LiveWatch, purveyor of self-installed security and home automation systems that are professionally monitored.

Monitronics parent Ascent paid 74x RMR for LiveWatch – a very large multiple for security accounts – because it found value in the company’s “very robust production engine,” which is infinitely scalable.

As for Icontrol, it will be rolling out Icontrol One at ISC West, wooing independent security dealers for the first time in its history (second time, actually, but the first effort was many moons ago).

Part of that service entails an external wireless module that includes 3G cellular, Z-Wave and Wi-Fi radios to upgrade certain legacy panels.

 

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About the Author

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Julie Jacobson, recipient of the 2014 CEA TechHome Leadership Award, is co-founder of EH Publishing, producer of CE Pro, Electronic House, Commercial Integrator, Security Sales and other leading technology publications. She currently spends most of her time writing for CE Pro in the areas of home automation, security, networked A/V and the business of home systems integration.

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