In what most will seem must be a bit of a coup, Charlie Kindel - the Mastermind behind Amazon's popular Alexa technology and products has been hired by home automation supplier Control4.
“The idea of the smart, connected home is decades old and has been poised to take off many times. It’s gratifying to see individual and industry persistence paying off as connected home solutions are finally hitting mainstream households. However, many products and systems are still too complex and don’t work well across an entire home. By being customer-obsessed, Control4 has become the leader in whole-home connected solutions that are highly-refined, reliable, and simple to use. I’m excited I now get to focus on leading the smart home revolution from this different perspective.”
Charlie Kindel spent five years at Amazon heading up what was originally a secret program to create the Alexa and Echo Smart Home products and systems for Amazon. Prior to thios Charlie spent 21 years working at Microsoft creating Windows Media Centre and Windows Home Server so is well versed in the Smart Home and Integration space.
Charlie Kindel - Control4
“During my time at Amazon, I witnessed the explosive growth in the Smart Home – voice, the most natural interface for the home, has driven consumer demand and acceptance. The problem is, getting all those individual products to work together – throughout the entire home is work typical home owners just don’t want to do. There’s too much fragility and complexity for normal folks to deal with.
For the past 16 years I did everything myself: multi-room audio, smart lighting, smart sprinklers, whole home security, and automation. Even for me, it was a second fulltime job to make all that really work. I’m absolutely convinced that the only way normal people will be able to really enjoy the benefits of a whole-home smart home is with professional help.”
At Control4 Charlie is the Senior Vice President heading up Products and Services. Control4 is a leading provider of personalized automation and control solutions, allows you to control virtually any device in a home or business, automatically. Founded in 2003, the company mission is to deliver an elegant and more affordable way to control and automate lighting, music, video, security and energy in a single room or throughout the entire home.
As part of his dedication to his new employer, Charlie set about upgrading his whole house to Control4 Smart Home Automation, including his Dolby Atmos home theatre setup and multi room sound.
Control4 Smart Home Automation
“I went with 148 intelligent lighting loads controlled by Control4’s panelized lighting, 52 Control4 keypads, five rooms of Multi-room 4K video including an Atmos home theater setup, 10 zones of Multi-Room audio using Triad amplifiers and speakers, two Control4 door stations, 15 Pakedge cameras, 9 Control4 smart thermostats, five Pakedge wireless access points, a host of Pakedge gigabit switches, and more. My fireplaces and the air compressor in my garage are all controlled by Control4 too. My network has 98 IP devices 58 Zigbee devices.”
We wish Charlie luck and it's great to see someone so passionate about technology involved with one of the big smart home companies, I'm sure it will be a very successful partnership for both of them.