Dive Brief:
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Merkury Innovations’s Geeni Lex and Prisma smart light bulbs and other products can now be controlled by voice through Google Assistant, Merkury Innovations announced this week in a press release.
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The company's Geeni Energi Series smart plug, energy meter and its just-unveiled Geeni SURGE smart surge protector products are also compatible with Google Assistant, which can individually turn on or off devices plugged into it, according to the company.
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The company’s Lux Series bulbs, designed to replace the most popular traditional white household bulbs, have an MSRP of $24.99 to $29.99, while Geeni's Prisma Series LED bulbs with customizable white or color settings list for $24.99 to $34.99. The Energi Series smart plug and energy meter carries a suggested price of $24.99, and the new Surge smart surge protector series, now available for pre-order, will have an MSRP of $39.99. The products are available through Home Depot, Amazon and other retailers.
Dive Insight:
It seems like just yesterday we wrote about a maker of smart home lighting products integrating with voice-activated virtual assistants to broaden the appeal of its products... oh, yeah, we did. On Wednesday, Ikea announced its Tradfri line of smart light bulbs can now be controlled by Google's Assistant, Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri.
But, Merkury's Geeni isn't just trying to copy what it sees in the headlines. The Geeni line has already integrated with Alexa for voice control before this, so Google Assistant is neither its first or only virtual assistant pairing. Both should help Geeni get on a faster smart home sales track. The company's smart light bulbs and other products also can be controlled through the cloud-based Geeni app.
The Geeni Surge, the forthcoming product just announced by the company, offers the unique capability of enabling each of the plugs to act as an individual smart switch, controllable from anywhere via Google Assistant. Geeni says no other Google Home-integrated smart plug does that, which is important competitive differentiation that even sets it apart from other smart home products that can be controlled through Google Assistant.
The Geeni products tout their simple set-up — only needing a connection to a Wi-Fi network — and unlike some smart home products, they don't require an additional smart home hub or gateway to control them, which probably makes Geeni a more natural partner for Alexa and Google Assistant than some other makers of smart home products. Not needing a hub also means the total customer investment for Geeni's smart home products is less money than some other systems. Geeni and Ikea both seem to have figured out this can make the smart home products more appealing in the market — which some onlookers say will take off this year.
