At $15,000 Will Best Buy's Smart Home In A Box Also Paint My House Blue And Yellow?

Bleeding Edge

from the Flicker-your-lights-from-work dept

Sure, many a technophile has their house already wired cheaply with home-brew media network solutions, but for individuals with an abundance of disposable income and a little less know how, Best Buy has a solution that offers you everything you’ll ever need to play poster child for the connected age (via Slashdot). For a mere $15,000, the retail chain is selling a box that includes a Media Center PC, an Xbox 360 (usable as a media center extender), one communicating thermostat, two Panasonic wireless cameras, and various dimmers, light switches and keypads — all of which are integrated via a home powerline networking kit. After shipping you a four foot square box, one of 27 trained technicians will come to your home anywhere in the country to install the system (everything but the electrical outlets) and train you. For an additional $20 a month, you can access all of the gear remotely via web browser. Best Buy has had a somewhat rocky road on the home integration front; they already offer a Best Buy for new homes service, and was looking for a way to woo customers with older homes looking to retrofit. Unfortunately the pricey system lacks the smart bricks, smart lightbulbs, or smart fridges we’ve been promised for a decade — and people who have crunched the numbers note that as usual, you’ll spend much less if you buy the parts yourself, and give your neighbor’s kid fifty bucks to lend a hand.