The electronic security and life safety industry has always been very hardware centric. Reflecting over the decades, the great progress demonstrated by the industry has revolved around new hardware or at least new hardware features. Standards such as Z-Wave and Zigbee, along with other advances in interoperability, have accelerated this progress, allowing disparate systems to play well with each other toward bolstering the consumer value proposition.

All this remains relevant while new and exciting platforms continue to appear — and with continued consumer adoption, they all continue to grow. What would you think if you could add new features to your existing subscriber base without rolling a truck or deploying new or additional hardware or systems? You may state that the industry currently has that ability. Features such as adding open and closing reporting comes to mind. Maybe some passive platform features offered by Alarm.com and Resideo’s Total Connect, which provide a little extra to subscribers that aren’t related to new hardware, may qualify.

It is apparent from what is being deployed, and what many experts believe, we have a lot more to look forward to in the very near future. When speaking at the Parks Associates CONNECT Conference this past May, I witnessed other experts voicing similar opinions to mine when it comes to what we see as a very interesting trend. And that trend can be summed up as “invisible.” Yes, invisible when referring to very engaging consumer benefits and features that are and will be available without the need of adding any new hardware or installations to a premise.

I invoke invisible because many of these features and benefits will ride on existing hardware that already resides on premise. Think about the variety of wireless, internet-based and smart devices we all have on premise. The list is exhaustive: smart TVs, doorbells, cameras, routers, WiFi hotspots, extenders, alarm control panels and so many others. Many of these devices have some overhead available for new technology to park and collaborate. Some of the technology may be directly related, some not so much. The elements that are in common is what is so important. Wireless and internet connectivity is the highway, and depending on what other elements are related, they all make up pieces of the pie that fit in tightly and create a platform that is more valuable with the collaboration.

Here’s a great example that is fresh and recently unveiled at the Resideo Connect 2023 annual conference of Resideo dealers in Scottsdale, AZ: Ubiety Technologies will be integrated with certain Resideo products. These two world class organizations state that they have been collaborating for nearly two years to integrate and release game-changing features, including presence detection, identification and dynamic central station monitoring workflows based on Ubiety’s patented artificial intelligence (AI) engine.

Just about everyone I spoke with in attendance at the conference said the energy and passion for the new presence detection capabilities from the Resideo dealer community was tremendous. Ubiety and Resideo are the first in the space to bring this transformative technology to the market. The market is ripe for innovative technology. Companies like Resideo and Ubiety are delivering what the market has been screaming for a long while — technology that is actionable, informative, strongly needed and easy to deploy.

You don’t have to imagine anymore. Picture this: Premise detection of anomalous devices entering a home that don’t belong. For example, if all members of a family use Apple iPhones and a Samsung phone enters the home, the system alerts the homeowner to an unknown device without requiring that device to connect to their WiFi. Similarly, if parents are out for the evening and expect their two children to remain home, and the platform recognizes there are six additional phones present, the AI platform alerts the homeowner. Critically, all of this is possible without installing cameras or microphones or any new hardware in the home.

Another example of valuable hardware that currently resides in every premise is an internet router and WiFi technology. Recently Verizon Fios — one of the largest home broadband ISPs in the United States — launched a new WiFi motion-sensing service called “Home Awareness.” Verizon’s sensing technology is provided by Origin AI and this is the first introduction of a WiFi-sensing service by a Tier 1 broadband service provider in the U.S. Verizon’s new offering, a home technology for Fios customers, uses Origin AI’s WiFi sensing technology to detect motion and report activity in your home through the My Fios App. Verizon has such a great belief in this technology that they made a financial investment in Origin AI.

Ubiety and Origin AI are just two companies that are deploying technology like this. Platforms like theirs transform connected devices into virtual sensors that enhance customers’ lives by providing services such as home security, home automation and wellness monitoring. All of this collectively leads to the ability to detect abnormal behaviors and provide a premise owner valuable information to better manage and protect their lives and lifestyles — all in an invisible manner, provided via over-the-air firmware updates that don’t require any additional truck rolls or installations.

WiFi sensing is a method for the detection of movement, whereas Ubiety’s RF presence detection capabilities detect and identify based on wireless RF-emitting devices. The data collected through WiFi sensing is extremely valuable when combined with other data like RF detection and/or processed by an intelligent AI platform.

The initial launches of these collaborative relationships are an important first step toward making on-premise sensing of devices and/or motion a ubiquitous feature, as sensing services gradually become increasingly more sophisticated.

I believe from what I see, these services will likely start to offer a variety of buy-in levels by the consumer. Basically, just pay for what you need and subscribe by way of activating more features through an app.