The Smart Home Market is expected to boom over the course of 2020 and one of Europe’s largest powerline smart home technology companies Aizo Group (CH) is taking big steps towards global expansion with their recent announcement that they have joined forces with eSmart Technologies and also hired a new technology executive in Aglaia Kong. Even more companies see powerline technology as the future for smart homes which makes the recent merge with other Swiss powerline innovator eSMART Technologies a logical next step to bring together the best technology available. On top of this, Aizo Group has shifted up a gear by raising 20 to 30 million euros to fuel its expansion in Asia; and by welcoming one of the world’s leading technology executives as its new board member, the aforementioned Aglaia Kong.
As a former CTO at Google and Cisco, Aglaia Kong has a broad experience in smart homes, smart buildings and IOT. But most of all, Kong comes with a plan, as she explains, “As the current CTO of Henderson Land Developments, my mission is to globally select the best smart home technology for both our existing and future building portfolio. That brought me to the Swiss Aizo Group team. I was really impressed with their powerline technology, their international project portfolio and their vision.”
Powerline: Tech Future of Smart Homes
Aizo Group is the result of the merger between three European leaders in powerline smart home solutions: digitalSTROM (CH), eSMART Technologies (CH and recent merge in 2020) and ONE Smart Control (BE and merge in 2018). The group, based in Switzerland, is currently the European leader in low speed powerline technology for smart home technology, with more than 16,000 homes installed and over 650,000 connected devices.
Through its powerline technology, Aizo is able to upgrade existing electrical wires in a building to a smart data network. That way, the Aizo solution connects and controls both analogue and smart devices, making them all part of a single smart home universe, simple to install and easy to use.
Kong added, “The prospect of integrating open source CPU technology like RISC-V, that my team has been developing optimized IOT SOC for, in the powerline solution of Aizo Group creates a compelling smart home solution. This solution will support most common sensor protocols such as wifi, BLE via RISC-V based SOC, and will have super reliable connectivity with powerline communication, so that people can be worry free that their smart home solutions work efficiently. This will be a winner – for everyone that wants to save energy and have guaranteed connectivity. This partnership will create interesting global growth perspectives for both of us. I am very happy I can support this exciting company with my experience.”
Aizo Group’s CEO and co-founder of eSMART Technologies Fabrizio Lo Conte, said, “With our technology, we offer an attractive smart home experience for residents, and at the same time a valuable smart building solution for building operators. That combination is unique: inhabitants get comfort and security, operators get energy efficiency and operational excellence. And both in terms of reliability and cost our solutions leave the competition behind – definitely in existing buildings.”
The company has achieved significant growth over the past years, organically as well as through merger and acquisitions. Its current core markets are Switzerland, Germany and Benelux but they are sold in more than 10 countries and Aizo was able to validate its technology in around 30 countries globally.
