Why did Leviton buy HAI?

[mattw22]

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...
 

 

[StarTrekDoors]

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!

 

[mattw22]

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.

 

[pete_c]

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....

 

[BobS0327]

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.
 
 

 

[leeleses]

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...