Best Buy is pushing deeper into the smart home through a new partnership with Vivint, a company that installs smart home devices and solar panels in homes.
The new deal, which was announced on Thursday, places Vivint experts in more than 400 of the electronics retailer’s stores so that they can give customers advice about smart home devices and installation. Vivint, which already offers these services independently through its website, has installed more than 15 million smart home devices in North American homes.
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The Vivint partnership is part of a broader strategy by Best Buy (BBY) to own a bigger piece of the smart home market. In 2014, the retailer rolled out “Connected Home” departments in its 1,000 stores. The 850-square-foot areas showcase over a hundred smart home devices, including Philips Hue smart lighting bulbs, August smart locks, Nest Wi-Fi-connected thermostats, and home surveillance cameras.
Now Vivint’s own products, which include a camera that connects to your doorbell and motion sensors, will be sold in these hubs. In addition, Vivint offers financing for smart home products, and service plans such as installation, equipment protection, and video storage. Vivint will also sell software that lets customers manage all of their smart home devices from a centralized online hub. The cost of the new Best Buy Vivint smart home monitoring plans are between $39 and $49 per month.
Best Buy is eying the smart home for good reason. The smart home global market is estimated to reach approximately $53.5 billion by 2022, according to market intelligence firm Zion Market Research.
“Our customers are increasingly excited about using smart tech in the home and it’s becoming one of fastest growing areas for Best Buy,” Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly said in an interview with Coins2Day. The company said on Thursday that it sold more than 55 million connected devices last year.
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Joly has been credited for helping Best Buy adapt to the changing retail world amid competition from Amazon.com, Target, and Walmart. He refers to the recent turnaround as “Building the New Blue,” which emphasizes e-commerce and customer services. Adding services from Vivint is part of that strategy, Joly said.
Asked about how much revenue the Vivint deal would bring for the company, Joly explained that “the revenue ramp will be gradual.” He continued, “It will be gradual because this year, we’re only going to be in about 400 stores, and that will begin to roll out this summer.” But Joly is optimistic about the prospects. “The smart home monitoring market is around $12 billion, and it’s growing nicely.”
