Why did Leviton buy HAI?

Now that Leviton is officially starting to discontinue bits and pieces of the HAI line probably leading to the full decommission of the HAI line very soon any ideas what Leviton was thinking buying HAI in the first place?
 
Seems like the buyout was the turning point that all development stopped...
 

My guess, and my opinion here only, would be Leviton made the purchase so they could make money.  HAI was already on it's way out with what it had and was simply way behind the times long before Leviton made the buy.
 
As to the decline in development- I think the problem was more that the techware was already very dated and no one at Leviton had the talent to develop "reliable" new - case in point - the Leviton Email Notifier which does not support modern email standards, the Omnitouch 7 when it was first released had fewer features than the discontinued touchscreens it was replacing.
 
Leviton's new child, Bitwise, unfortunately does NOT support many of the Omni-features when integrating the OT7 (into Bitwise), which means you have to run at least one OT7 Omni and one OT7 Bitwise to use both sets of features (again if you choose to integrate the Omni with the Bitwise).  Oddly, Bitwise supports newer email security standards but lack support for straight SMTP, so has no backward compatibility, which makes no sense if you have to use two different email services -- one for Omni and one for Bitwise.  Seems like the Product Managers for both lines should be fired and they should go blazing forward with a fully integrated platform adding competitive functionality that is popular.  Of course, they may simply not want the business!

You have to wonder if Leviton ever had any plans for new development or just planned to ride out the current line as long as possible.
 
I don’t remember anything new coming out after they purchased the line. If they did it wasn’t anything ground breaking. I mainly saw them just re-label all the products as Leviton.

Personally...
 
It's always about the bottom line.  Recall meeting Jay (?) at one EHExpo before the hurricane there.  He seemed to be a happy camper in business and it was a high time of business....but also looked like he was already interested back then in selling the business...or letting it sell itself...kind of had an aire sort of not needing any more business...
 
I get most of my support of my OP2 right here on the forum and mostly see many or all of the legacy OP2 users (Obi Wan folks) doing similiar with years of experience (20 plus).
 
I've gone a bit on a tangent updating my panel with a micro computer running OpenWRT....it does do a lot with a limited amount of CPU and RAM based on a very tight opensource OS...and now going to the Ubuntu world of a mini computer that resides inside of the OmniPro media panel....it is and isn't propietary...
 
I do only access my home network these days using VPN including all of the widgets connected to the OmniPro panel...works great and is very easy to do these days....

Leviton maintained the status quo with HAI after the acquisition in August 2012.  That is, HAI was a independent operating unit called HAI by Leviton.  This independent status was maintained for about 18 months before Leviton decided to shutdown the independent operation and move it in house where it became known as Levition Security & Automation.  
 
IMHO, Leviton initially invested a lot of resources, financial and otherwise in the HAI product line in order to gain a foothold in the residential market.  But Leviton eventually realized that the HAI line was a really technology antiquated product line which could never become  a leader in the residential market.  I guess you could say that Leviton was tired of throwing good money after bad money.
 
After moving the HAI operation in house, there was one "groundbreaking" event.  Leviton raised the price of HAI products by an average of 10%.  Now keep in mind they're raising the price of antiquated 20th century hardware.  IMHO, from then on, Leviton was determined to squeeze every last ounce of revenue out of the HAI line while keeping maintenance, R&D and other costs to an absolute minimum.
 
 

Hi everyone!  
 
I know this is a fairly old thread, but I have a question.  
 
Without breaking my stones, can someone(s) explain to me what made the Omni panels no longer relevant / obsolete?
 
Me and several customers of mine still love the panel!  Especially the telephone link and the Snaplink & Snaplink Mobile.
 
Pros - (above) and also the wide range of products it could work with.
 
Cons - the notified board, various lock systems, and UPB were not that great, too many issues & bugs, no integration with Alexa or Google, and the board ran too slow for some things.
 
I mean I get systems like Alula are out there, 100% wireless.  But I like the hybrid Omni - wired AND wireless on one system.
 
Leviton couldn't take the existing concept and design a new updated motherboard?
 
I'm not impressed with Elk, Alula, or the other offerings so far...

I have owned 3 homes and put systems in all of them. I have been working with this stuff since 2005. Still in my opinion the best product out there. Never a false alarm, never had any system failure, simple and reliable. My last house I just sold had an OmniIIe running my place while I worked away 10 years and is still going. I think the installation and dealer oriented business model failed them. This is the case in many industries. If the user can't understand, modify or repair easily - the appeal is not there. Everyone here is technically minded. It was over the heads of many people. Hopefully e-bay does not run out of parts. Alexa turn on the lights-lol

leeleses said:

Hi everyone!

I know this is a fairly old thread, but I have a question.

Without breaking my stones, can someone(s) explain to me what made the Omni panels no longer relevant / obsolete?

Me and several customers of mine still love the panel! Especially the telephone link and the Snaplink & Snaplink Mobile.

Pros - (above) and also the wide range of products it could work with.

Cons - the notified board, various lock systems, and UPB were not that great, too many issues & bugs, no integration with Alexa or Google, and the board ran too slow for some things.

I mean I get systems like Alula are out there, 100% wireless. But I like the hybrid Omni - wired AND wireless on one system.

Leviton couldn't take the existing concept and design a new updated motherboard?

I'm not impressed with Elk, Alula, or the other offerings so far...

Click to expand...

I agree with you. The HAI Omni was a great system. I installed many of them. Most of them are still out in the field working. In the last couple years I've been installing Elk.
Take another look at Elk... In my opinion its very close to HAI in capability. There are some things I could program the HAI to do that Elk can't.
On the other hand, Elk has far better wireless capability and far better ip capability.

There are a number of reasons the Omni was discontinued.... One was the proliferation of cheap systems like Simplisafe that drew customers away due to their low prices. Another was Leviton didn't keep the Omni current - poor updates to SnapLink. Partial GE wireless support, very poor HAI proprietary wireless offering, very old 10 MBs network interface, unreliable touchscreens until the 99A00-1 Android version. Even the android model dropped features previous touchscreens had such as showing "user settings".

Leviton/HAI is not the only company to leave the market... Look at what happened to GE/Interlogix.

With a lot times when companies purchase other companies, it's usually about the patents the selling company holds. Leviton saw value in at least one of the patents that HAI held and likely bought the company just for that. It sucks for HAI customers, but it's clear Leviton never had any intentions of continuing any of the HAI products and only wanted the patents which isn't unusual. A lot of times any/all current product lines by the selling company are nothing but a liability to the purchasing company because even if they utilize the "important" patent(s), it probably isn't being utilized exactly how the purchasing company plans to use it.

You'll probably never notice how Leviton ends up utilizing those patents because they will be so embedded into the Leviton systems you won't notice that technology as being HAI derived.

I believe the entire issue is that HAI was built by smart people with technical smarts. That doesn’t translate well to someone who wants plug and play. The tech could have been improved, but they solved a solution we see modern companies fighting over. Standardized, integrated systems.

They needed marketing guys, User Interface designers, and product designers who could have changed things like ‘UPB’ to ‘Makes your lights smart’… etc.

Leviton could have controlled the entire Home Automation market. They had the foundation. They had the money. They just cried when the big, old, mean, competition makes it hard.

Think of a all one one unit that plugs into the wall and with integrated modern UPB instantly makes all outlets and switches smart. Add some wireless security and sensors. Boom! OmniGo-Pro 23…

Instead people still using these products which are holding their own against all the new players. Including Google, Apple and Amazon.

If I were Leviton CEO I’d take another look and be the company to take the reigns on the smart home industry. Or keep crying about the mean old competition.