Goodbye, Mr. Sunshine

After a week of being under the weather I could use a little sun to brighten my outlook. Unfortunately, following some news last week, that doesn’t seem to be in the cards.

I’ll get to that point in a moment, since it’s a little detour from normal security news. The actual news I wanted to discuss this week is the often discussed but still unreleased ADT smart home security system made in collaboration with Google. It so happened that my boss asked me earlier this week what was exciting in the security world, and I said nothing, but big news soon! Which, you know, sure sounded like I was deflecting but I swear, this is what I was talking about!

The word is that it’s set to be revealed properly in the coming month, which seems about right since ADT is having their earnings call on February 28, so I’d guess right before that if I was placing a bet. This is the system customers will likely turn to after Google sunsets their Google Nest Secure System in April. After ADT divested itself of its commercial business last year this was a natural follow-up to that, a nice tic to add to the balance sheet.

What I did not expect was ADT to exit the residential solar business last week. Judging by all the news stories I’ve been reading around the internet I’m not certain a lot of people expected it. It’s no secret that ADT Solar wasn’t doing so hot. You can’t sell residential solar when no one can afford to buy homes, and when you factor in ongoing politicization of solar you’re going to have a volatile market.

Still, I kind of thought ADT was going to stick to their guns and ride out the storm on solar. I still think that the market is going to be huge, just maybe not right now. Time will tell whether ADT cut loose some dead weight or cut off its nose to spite its face.

              And so Mr. Sunshine although you go away
              I know that you’ll come back to see me every day

Stay tuned for later this week, where I’ll have an article with Fingerprint’s Dan Pinto discussing fintech security.