ADT expands monitoring with Canopy

LAS VEGAS—ADT announced its new Canopy service at CES, which brings the company's professional monitoring capabilities into devices from LG, Honeywell, Samsung, and others.

“The real core of this � is expanding what can be monitored and how it is monitored,” Arthur Orduna, ADT chief innovation officer, told Security Systems News. The program currently has three categories, Orduna said: panic and response services, fire and life safety, and intrusion.

On Jan. 6, ADT announced the first nine integration partners: LG, Kidde, Samsung Gear S2 Watch, Samsung SmartThings, August Doorbell Cam, Wink, Honeywell Lyric line of products, Ring Video Doorbell and Roost Smart Battery.

Through Canopy, users could send a panic or intrusion alarm to ADT's monitoring center through the August's Doorbell Cam app. Users could also send life safety alarms through Kidde's smoke detectors' app.

The integration is not complete. ADT expects to complete the integrations over the course of this year.

Orduna expects integration partners to launch Canopy to their customers using either "a full commercial launch, or � an initial trial in multi-markets.” ADT is working with LG right now.

The service could come either pre-integrated in the device, or users can sign up for it and install Canopy themselves.

Do users need to be ADT customers? “No. In fact, our assumption is that the vast majority people who would be signing up for Canopy services are not ADT customers, and—frankly—probably are not traditional home security automation customers,” Orduna said.

“Customers will not sign up for Canopy with ADT, but rather with the integration partners. “The request for monitoring from ADT is coming from either the user directly or from a third-party device or platform.”

There is no long term contract required for Canopy. It is a month-to-month service, he said. ADT is still determining a pricing structure.

ADT set up Canopy's API and developer portal to allow its integration partners to do “the bulk of the proof-of-concept and initial work on their own,” he said. Marketing the Canopy service will be a joint effort, Orduna said, involving both ADT and the integration partner.

Orduna said that ADT has been working on Canopy for three years, and has had it in mind since ADT split from Tyco.