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DragonFly offers hybrid DIY home security model
Honeywell is launching a new DIY hybrid service called DragonFly at ISC West to harvest the Millennials market that had previously resisted paying for a monitored home security solution.
April 6, 2016 By Neil Sutton
The service comes as a result of Honeywell’s recent acquisition of RSI Technologies, makers of the Videofied wireless video alarm system.
Keith Jentoft of RSI (now Honeywell) introduced the product on a Honeywell blog post just prior to ISC West, describing it as a “business-in-box solution” that could potentially add new opportunities to Honeywell dealers who are used to more established models of installation and monitoring. With DragonFly, dealers don’t ever actually have their hands on the product at any stage of the process. Users can order a kit (a hub and two cameras) online from an authorized DragonFly website run by the dealer, install it themselves and integrate it using their phone. The solution is then monitored by a central station. In this process, the dealer’s main role is to promote the service, but is still able to collect some of the RMR. The company has not officially announced pricing yet, but is signing up dealers at ISC West, held April 6-8 in Las Vegas.
In an interview with SP&T News, David Paja, president of Honeywell’s security group, says he sees this as means to start addressing the majority of people (an estimated 75 to 80 per cent) who currently do not have a monitored security solution in their homes. “We’ve always had this view that our strength is our portfolio of products and the channel. How can we get into the DIY space, but do it through our channel?”
Paja acknowledges that there is a contingent of people who will want to both install and monitor their own equipment but there are others who are interested in a hybrid model where they can install and view their own systems but still get professional monitoring on demand. “With the DragonFly offering, we provide a tool to the dealers who are going to be able to reach out to new customers who they couldn’t address before. It’s a very interesting value proposition,” he says.
The service will launch first in the U.S. There is no launch date as yet for Canada “but our intention is to bring it global as quickly as possible,” says Paja.
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