A promising market

The BeeWi brand enters the international smart home market from France. It is specialised in the development of connected accessories and offers a full smart home range including a gateway.
And there is a special feature - a major strength, from the point of view of the manufacturer. All accessories use wireless technology by Bluetooth Low Energy. At BeeWi they are convinced: this technology is particularly well suited for home automation because it offers low energy consumption (opposed to Wi-Fi) and a wide range of 50 m.
A further advantage is considered to be the fact that this techno­logy is already built into smartphones and tablets, in contrast to other remote transmission solutions such as Zigbee or ZWave. So a local gateway isn't required (if you only want to use the smart home functions at home). Otherwise, BeeWi offers an optional smart Internet gateway, if the user wishes to exercise control from outside.
The product range consists of a selection of LED bulbs and a strip with temperature and humidity sensors and motion detectors as well as plugs with integrated thermometers, motion detectors and consumption meters. Wi-Fi cameras are now also brand new. All accessories are controlled using a single "SmartPad" app for both local and long-distance modes.

At first these products were only offered through large specialist electronics shops and telecommunication providers such as Orange. However, because this product group is becoming increasingly popular, distribution is now also possible through other channels, in particular DIY stores and even through food retailing.
"Even if the market isn't yet mature, it is still very promising," assesses Thierry Dechatre as director of strategy. He is sure: "Demand is going to explode in the next two years." The driving force of this development, he feels, is in the simplification of use and installation as well as falling prices. He also adds that there are now new control solutions which use voice commands, such as Amazon Alexa (which BeeWi is compatible with) and Apple Home Pod.
When it comes to distribution, BeeWi anticipates a lot from its parent company HBF which took over the company almost a year ago. HBF operates primarily in the fields of electrical installation material, lighting and decoration…