Now you can access AT&T's home security service from your car
AT&T's Digital Life and Drive platforms are joining forces so you can tap into your home security and automation set up straight from your car.
Today at Mobile World Congress, AT&T announced that its Digital Life and Drive platforms now work together.
Digital Life is a dealer-installed, fee-based home security and automation service that provides live monitoring as well as remote access on Android and iOS devices and computers. You have the option to choose from a handful of packages for customization, but you can also opt for a whole-home solution since the available hardware ranges from security cameras and door and window sensors to garage door openers, thermostats and smoke detectors.
AT&T's Drive initiative has locked down partnerships with Audi, BMW, GM, Ford, Tesla, Nissan, Volvo and Subaru. Its goal is to explore opportunities to inject AT&T tech into the connected feature offerings of these brands.
With this new partnership, Digital Life subscribers (with a compatible car) will be able to access the app on their vehicle's control panel or via voice control so they can check in on what's happening at home without having to grab their phone. Theoretically, then, you should be able to tell your car to open the garage door, rather than fishing around for your controller or the AT&T Digital Life app.
This sort of third-party integration is appearing on the smart-home scene with increasing frequency. Consider the Works with Nest initiative and its partnership with Mercedes-Benz. When you and your Benz are closing in on home, you can program it to trigger your Nest Learning Thermostat to switch to Home mode.
Given the sluggish smartphone market, AT&T has been working to secure new integrations and this Digital Life/Drive partnership puts that effort on full display. AT&T said that it added 800,000 wireless cars in the fourth quarter of 2014 and has plans to lasso roughly half of new US cars in 2015 and over 10 million by the close of 2017.
AT&T's Drive Studio is located in Atlanta, but you can check out an interactive demo of this new partnership in action here at Mobile World Congress 2015 in the Innovation City at stand 3A31. Be sure to check out the rest of CNET's MWC 2015 coverage.