After weeks of rumors about a sale, both Comcast and Alarm.com have confirmed their plans to divvy up and acquire the smart home platform company Icontrol. Terms of Comcast's deal were not disclosed, but Alarm.com is spending approximately $140 million on its part of the transaction. According to the Crunchbase database, Icontrol has raised more than $90 million from investors since 2003.
Comcast Corp. says that the main part of Icontrol Networks Inc. it intends to buy is the business unit in charge of the company's Converge software platform. Although Comcast has moved a portion of its smart home development work in house, it still relies on the Converge platform, which uses the Zigbee protocol, for parts of its Xfinity Home service, including its touchscreen panel and back-end servers. Comcast says it will continue to invest in this part of the business, and that current Icontrol employees will make up a new Comcast "engineering center of excellence" in Austin, Texas.
Alarm.com Inc. is targeting Icontrol's Connect and Piper businesses with its planned acquisition. The Connect solution uses the Z-Wave IoT protocol and powers security and home automation services from several providers including ADT Corp. The Piper business is built around a WiFi-enabled video and home automation hub. Icontrol bought the Piper technology in its acquisition of the company Blacksumac back in 2014.