Mobile payments; home
automation; health tracking; Bluetooth LE beacons; ubiquitous media streaming,
and inevitably, one last surprise: In true Apple style, the product
presentation was packed.
But this wasn't Apple: Its
back-to-school extravaganza has come and gone. The star of this show was
Orange, the French network operator.
Everyone knows you shouldn't
make Apple-to-Orange comparisons, but CEO Stéphane Richard was clearly playing
up the similarities at the Palais de Chaillot theater in Paris on Thursday. In
business casual attire, with just five giant video screens for company on
stage, he spent nearly an hour hyping the products and services the company
will offer businesses and consumers over the next year.
The hardware highlight of the
show was Homepoint. About the size of a couple of stacked CD boxes, this squat
black square houses a Qi wireless charging pad for compatible smartphones, and
two USB ports each capable of delivering 1.5 amps, enough to power a tablet.
There's also an SD Card slot from which media can be streamed to screens around
the home, and a Bluetooth connection that can pair with up to four devices to
stream audio from them to a hi-fi through the 3.5mm audio jack.
The Homepoint also has a button
for initiating WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) secure Wi-Fi connections for
visitors, who can then access the Internet but not content on the home network.
Homepoint will go on sale in November for under €80 (US$100), Richard said, but
it's hard to say who will pay for its curious mishmash of features.
The emphasis on streaming media
continued with Project Polaris, which will allow users of Orange's video on
demand, streaming TV, music and gaming services to begin watching or playing
on, say, the TV, hit pause, and then resume where they left off on their phone,
tablet or PC. "It's a common interface for all screens," and will be
available by year-end, said Richard.
As if that weren't enough to
watch, Netflix will be available through Orange's set-top box in France from
November, Richard said. The company is playing catch-up with its smaller rival,
Bouygues Telecom, which introduced Netflix to its subscribers last month.
With its home automation and
monitoring service, Homelive, Orange is following in the footsteps of another
rival, SFR, which upgraded its Homebox range in May. There's a fundamental
difference between the two, according to an Orange employee demonstrating the
products: "Our offering is open, and SFR's is proprietary. That means we
can offer the best connected objects at any given time." Orange will
launch its €9.99/month service on Oct. 23, with smoke detectors, motion
detectors,
weather
stations, power
controllers and other devices from partners including Philips, Netatmo and
Fibaro
