Transcript
Dean Wehrli:
Hey everyone, this is Dean. The following podcast was done for a New Home Trends Institute webinar, in middle of March, earlier this year. It’s with Jamie Siminoff of Ring and Eric Feder of LENx and it’s a really fascinating look at the role of home technology and the future of technology in the home. Give it a listen. Thanks for listening.
Jenni Nichols:
Joining are us Eric Feder, managing general partner at LENx, which is Lennar’s innovation and venture capital investing arm. If you want to know about real estate technology, Eric is your guy. He’s been instrumental in taking Lennar through multiple huge investments, including States Title, Blend, Opendoor, and Divvy Homes. Eric also has a passion for making a difference with his work at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami. Fun fact, he’s also an avid pilot.
Jenni Nichols:
Our other speaker, Jamie Siminoff, is founder and inventor of Ring. A lifelong inventor and mission driven entrepreneur, Jamie created the first Wi-Fi video doorbell while working in his garage in 2011. The doorbell, then called DoorBot which Jamie actually took on to Shark Tank, has since transformed into what’s now known as Ring. Although much has changed since the company’s inception, it is Ring’s mission of making neighborhoods safer that continues to drive Jamie as an inventor and entrepreneur. When he’s not working, Jamie enjoys spending time with his wife, son, and three dogs, Short Rib, Pancake, and Biscuit.
Jenni Nichols:
Without further ado, I’m going to let Dean take it away so we can hear from this great group.
Dean Wehrli:
Thank you, Jenni. I am actually going to switch it up on you guys. First I want to mention to Jamie, do you ever FaceTime Mark Cuban and just talk to him or anything like that? Because you should.
Jamie Siminoff:
You know, Cuban, of the Sharks … The Sharks are actually … They’re really … I was able to go back on Shark Tank as a Shark, so I did spend some time with them and they’re really, really nice. Cuban’s the one I have the least sort of social stuff with, but the other ones I do spend time with some of the other Sharks and they’re super nice and it was an amazing experience.
Dean Wehrli:
Or you can buy a front court seat at the Maverick’s game and root for the Lakers really aggressively. That could be good, too.
Jamie Siminoff:
Yeah.
Dean Wehrli:
I’m going to mix it up like I just said, Eric. I’m actually going to start with Jamie. Jamie, tell us about this … You’re going way, way beyond the doorbell camera now with what you do and the connected home. Just give us kind of an overview of what you’re doing now.
Jamie Siminoff:
So what we have been doing is we’ve been on this mission at Ring … we started with the doorbell, but really if you look at our product lineup, it has really been these sort of rings of security around the home and the neighborhood. What we’ve been able to do with Lennar and Eric and the team there is really showcase what we think the best experience in the home can be. Definitely around security with our Ring video doorbell, the alarm, but then you get into connectivity with Eero and water with Flo and the locks with Level and Honeywell for the thermostat, so really sort of bringing it all together in a way that we think makes for the best living experience in a home and in a community.
Dean Wehrli:
So Ring is going to be the hub of that connected home experience, is that the idea?
Jamie Siminoff:
Yeah, I would say we never intended to be a hub. I never looked at … We’ve had this … We’ve talked before about this sort of smart home and the concepts around that and I think people want to live in a home that’s better, they want things around them … I don’t think we’re any different than an oven in terms of we do the thing that you need us to do for you in the home. It turned out that Ring became a good place for these things to come together, both from a connectivity side, from a single app side. Very simple, easy, clean user interface, and it when you open Ring you get to see the camera view of what’s happening at your house. You get a good sort of status of what’s going on whether you’re home or away.
Dean Wehrli:
By the way, Ring camera in the oven. Just throwing that out there. Just saying.
Jamie Siminoff:
I’m going to … From our pre-show you have a lot of good ideas so I’m just going to start writing these all down so I don’t forget all these great nuggets.
Dean Wehrli:
Eric, talk about … You’re with LENx, but talk a little bit about how you guys partnered up with Ring. What’s the genesis with that and why does that work?
Eric Feder:
So our relationship with Ring, Jamie, and Amazon goes back years now. This I would dub as our sort of version 2.0, connected home 2.0. 1.0 we learned a whole lot. We learned number one that Amazon, Jamie, and Ring are incredible partners. It starts with us at Lennar with partnership. It’s sort of our core and we’re very relationship driven.
Jamie and Ring helped us really shape our thinking in and around what we used to call smart home, today we’re calling a connected home. Through the version 1.0 into 2.0 we’ve learned that we’re going to provide our customers not with what would be nice to have but what are the must haves today for our homeowners? What are our customers going to expect? What gives them the most versatile platform, sort of the foundation, which our customers can build on? Jamie understood the importance of working with us and these other manufacturers to create a one app integrated solution and one of the things that we learned, Dean, historically is our customers have what I’ll call app fatigue. An app for each of these devices is cumbersome, and so we worked with Jamie very hard to create an elegant, joyful solution for our customers so they can access all of these features right from one app and all of the other things that we focus don historically, call it the bells and whistles, of setting scenes and movie time and those are very nice but there’s one size fits all relative to that.
So we’re allowing our customers to … We’re giving them what we think is the best of breed in terms of a foundation using Ring products, eero, and Flow and Level and Honeywell as the base. With this powerful Wi-Fi provided eero and the Wi-Fi guarantee that eero provides to our customers with no dead spots in our homes, our customers can add on all these other devices that are available, whether they’re from Ring, and we believe that Ring will continue to be the front runner relative to innovation, technology, keeping their hardware current, keeping their software current, keeping their customers … Everyone uses the term future proofing, but we believe this is the team that can do it and the team that can support our homeowners to give them the best customer experience.
Dean Wehrli:
Okay. Now, I’m not going to use the word smart home because last I did, Jamie lashed out and made me cry. It was as if I had just watched The Fault in Our Stars. I was sobbing that hard. Why, though, do you call it a connected home instead of a smart home? What’s the difference?
Jamie Siminoff:
From my side it really comes from, and we’re joking, but I find the smart home for customers, I don’t think it’s something that they want. Your home is like another family member. It’s not an asset, and I think when you call it a smart home, you’re treating the home as an asset. You’re treating the neighborhood in a very sort of tactical way and I don’t think that’s how people want to live in their neighborhoods and the communities that Lennar builds. I don’t think it’s how you want to … Sort of, when you enter your home, I don’t think you think about it like that. So I like connected home and I like the idea that we are building and putting in best in breed, things that make your home the … I look it almost as our job is to help enable a home to be better for you. So your home wants to tell you when there’s a leaky pipe and shut it off. Your home wants to tell you when someone’s at the front door when you’re not there and give you the ability to let them in. Your home wants to protect you and so we just do the things to enhance that and that’s why I don’t love smart home. I like the idea that we’re trying … that’s our thought process and our methodology in what we do.
Dean Wehrli:
Yeah. Eric, anything to add to that from your side?
Eric Feder:
No, we were contractually obligated to call it a connected home. I happen to agree with you. I think they’re fricken smart as can be. No, all kidding aside, no. Look, the home has changed, particularly over the last twelve months, how we use our homes. The home is no longer a place that we just sleep and eat and spend time with our family. The home is a home office. The home is a home gym. The home is a home school.
We reshaped our thinking. Connected. Connected for these reasons and also to connect with the community, which is the evolution for us. As we see it, the future is the connection is beyond just a home. Community is going to be much more … we use the phrase community and the term community I think a little too loosely. To create a real community, a sense of community, we think it has to be connected. That’s all I have to say about that, Dean. Don’t put me on the spot.
Dean Wehrli:
Well, I’m going to.
Eric Feder:
Okay.
Dean Wehrli:
Jamie, how-
Eric Feder:
You were much nicer in the green room, by the way. What the hell happened to you?
Dean Wehrli:
I’m kind of a Jekyll and Hyde. Jamie, did you … What was the research process like? How did you start figuring out how you wanted to design and what you wanted to be in the connected home?
Jamie Siminoff:
On this one, we really did … We were directionally sort of going down this path. It was, though, a partnership with Lennar that I would say put the sort of cherry on top of this sundae because we had a lot of the pieces in place but it was really working with Lennar and that’s what’s been fun with this is putting our … Ring, our mission is to make neighborhoods safer. Lennar is, I believe, the biggest neighborhood builder in the U.S. And so being able to be with a company that’s literally building neighborhoods and on our side a company that thinks about how you can use technology to make a neighborhood better, and we call our customers neighbors. Taking all of that together and melding it together is really what happened here and that’s where something like Flow that wasn’t integrated before and how that matters to the home.
When a home has a leak, or when a pipe bursts when you’re not there, the damage that’s done is so severe and it’s not about poor workmanship or anything. Everyone knows who’s probably on the call, there’s lots of reasons why these can happen and even if your insurance covers it, the damage to your home, the having to move out and the impact on the neighborhood, these are all things that are sort of emotionally harmful.
I think coming together on that, that’s what I excited about is we were able to build this package with Lennar that I think takes our mission to the next level with them and then it’s in every home in a community and watching how communities, to what Eric is saying, how neighborhoods and communities can talk to each other. We have our Neighbors app, which is part of Ring, and it really allows for I think the most constructive way to socialize in a neighborhood around things that matter. Lost pets, things that are happening in the neighborhood, being able to share that in a way that’s very constructive, quick, and easy.
Dean Wehrli:
Yeah. Did you do those kind of traditional things like the surveys and focus groups and stuff like that or did you just ask Eric for everything?
Jamie Siminoff:
We’re not necessarily a survey company. We have a lot of … We have millions and millions of neighbors that have products. Lennar has been in the home building and the community building business for a long time so I think we were able to really put our heads together on this, and we’ve been working together also … We had been putting Ring doorbells on homes now for a few years and so we did have the learnings from that going into this. I think this was really, though, putting our heads together to come up with what we felt was the best package for someone to move in.
To your point earlier, and Eric’s point, you can also … What’s great is once you move in, you can expand into other areas of if you want to add more tech or more pieces or features to the home. Very easy to add on with the baseline and foundation that we built here.
Dean Wehrli:
So it’s adaptable. It can grow, it can change. In the process, though, of coming to the package that you ultimately came to, was there missteps? Was there stuff you discarded? Stuff you found didn’t work?
Jamie Siminoff:
I mean, it–
Eric Feder:
You go first.
Jamie Siminoff:
The whole thing started, we were working with Lennar for a long time and had a relationship there, but Eric called me on Mother’s Day and literally I did have to … I mean, my wife was looking at me kind of with this, “It’s Mother’s Day,” and I gave her the-
Eric Feder:
Your mother.
Jamie Siminoff:
I gave her, “It’s Lennar,” like, “We’re going to do this.” So it started with that. So the missteps started right from there. I think great things, great partnerships, great relationships have ups and downs. They have sort of those tensions and I think it’s how you react to those and so everything we’ve done is not perfect, but we … I think it’s how we support it, how we react to it. My email’s on every box, so that goes all the way to the customer, so how we look at that. I think Lennar’s a similar company in terms of how they look at supporting their customers. From that side, we’re so culturally aligned that I think that’s what has us excited to work together and continue on this path.
Dean Wehrli:
Eric, you go ahead, but I should remind you this is a family show, so please the language.
Eric Feder:
We are all family. I get it, and I apologize if I mis-stepped.
Dean Wehrli:
Okay.
Eric Feder:
My HR group is probably listening also.
So look, for us, there were a lot of learnings and we do listen to our customers and we are customer focused, obsessed with customer satisfaction here at Lennar. So some of the things I mentioned to you earlier, the simplicity, the elegance of the experience and another very important thing that we missed on early on, if I had to be completely transparent, is people want their activation now. When our homeowners purchase their home, they should move into their home and be able to activate, make this as much of a DIY or a do it yourself, I’ve learned not to use acronyms, do it yourself program as simple as possible. The program that we had historically required lead times for what we worked on is what was called a White Glove Activation, and that really didn’t appeal to everybody. We’re giving our home purchases the opportunity, like we said, the ability to expand on what’s there. But people want service and they want it now, or our home purchasers do, so we’ve solved for that problem.
Another thing that we focused on is listening devices, which we don’t have in our package today. I know it’s a fan favorite and many people enjoy having listening devices in their home and today it’s highly commoditized and we’re allowing our customers, our homeowners, to choose whatever listening devices that they’d like.
Dean Wehrli:
You might have just teased them a little bit in my next question but I’ll ask it anyway and this is for both of you guys. Is there, in terms of technology in the home, is there a too far for consumers? Is there too much or too invasive?
Eric Feder:
You want to go first?
Jamie Siminoff:
Yeah, I think it’s not about too far. I think what it is, is when technology is in your home for technology’s sake, that’s when it becomes too far because you’re then not getting the value out of it. I’ll say with Alexa, the value out of Alexa, and I just went and installed a bunch of Alexas at my mother in law’s house, I just did it at a widow that lives across the street from me, and I did it for the reason of Alexa now has this thing called Guard Plus where you can say, “Alexa, I need help,” and a live person will come on, ask you what the problem is, then call the police, fire, ambulance, whatever.
So to me, is that too far? Not at all. That’s an incredible thing and I want my mother in law no matter where she is in her house, so I set it up so that her voice can always reach an Alexa for that. Think of the cost of that and again from what I said, enabling the home to do what it … The home wants to keep you safe, and so with your voice now, your home can protect you. So to me, that’s where technology’s doing something meaningful for the customer. When it starts to do stuff that’s not as meaningful, I think that’s where we have that rub and where we sort of lose our way.
Dean Wehrli:
So it’s not the invasiveness, maybe, but it’s the uselessness, just over-reliance. Is that …
Jamie Siminoff:
Yeah, useless is probably a harsh time since I do make this stuff, but I think it is when it’s not providing real meaningful uses to the homeowner. Then it becomes just gidgets and gadgets and I think … Sure, there’s those, I call them gadget collectors. There’s people that want that, but that’s a very small part of the world and what we try to go after are the real customers, the people that are going to, and I don’t want to say my mom just because it’s my mom, but I set it up also at my mom’s house. She lives in New Jersey. She lives alone. I was able to, for less than $400, enable her entire home to now give her help with her voice. Take away Alexa, take away everything, that’s just an amazing thing that the home can do for her now.
Dean Wehrli:
Eric, how about your experience? Is there anything that’s too far or that just, you know, is not as acceptable to most folks?
Eric Feder:
I think that’s so situational. Like I said earlier, there’s no one size fits all and we can’t try to solve for everyone’s needs, likes, preferences so that’s why we designed this package, curated what we have here today. Those who very particular and like Jamie said, I think it’s a very small subset that like these gadgets and like all these features, they are so particular about what they want to have in their home, let them do it. Let them set it up. To try to solve for that is very complicated.
One thing I failed to mention earlier, Dean, if I can just back up a minute with regard to this package which this is a first for us. Pardon me. Get’s me choked up.
Dean Wehrli:
Don’t cry like Jamie made me cry about using the word smart home.
Eric Feder:
Yeah. But what’s a first for us is we’re offering home security to every customer as a part of our EI package in the bulk of our homes, and what’s really nice about that is we’re not saddling our customers with long dated contracts at these ridiculously high monthly fees. Our customers have the opportunity to opt in or not to the professional monitoring that Ring offers. To the extent our homeowners choose to do so, it’s a month to month, if they choose to, or it’s an annual and it’s an incredibly reasonable price. It also includes the storage of all the video which for us is very unique, something we’ve never offered and very early on, we’re seeing wonderful receptivity relative to that feature.
And even if it’s not that, even if it … I just get so excited. Even if it’s not them professionally monitoring, the ability just to hear the ding or the chime every time that front door opens, you wouldn’t believe how meaningful that is to people. I have it too, and I take it for granted, but it’s actually a pretty interesting feature.
Dean Wehrli:
Yeah. So the video, too. I was telling Jamie earlier about a friend of mine who has it on his tree in his backyard and so he has this video cached, I guess, of the first flights of these robins, the hatchings of these robins. They had a robin’s nest in a tree in his backyard and he treasures that stuff.
Eric Feder:
Yeah, these become more nature cams for a lot of people. I’ll tell you that I have them set up as nature cams in parts. It’s pretty neat.
Dean Wehrli:
Yeah, he has four.
Jamie Siminoff:
And I think people actually take that a little bit sometimes for granted. I mean, we always talk about security because that is a bigger use case and it’s where sort of I’ll say your budget comes from, but your front door, and again your home, it is like another family member and it’s literally where your family members are … Your kids coming home from school. These special moments that are happening. These memories. So it is capturing these moments in life and we see it all the time of someone proposing to someone. There’s just so many amazing moments that happen that this also captures and the joy. I remember when there was a time when children went to school and came home from school, and I remember when that happened and I would be away on a trip and I’d see my son run up with his backpack and I’d get a motion alert. It just connects you in this way that’s like … It emotionally connects you and that’s what I love that we are sort of helping to do that with your home. I want that to be part of your experience and we talk about this.
Dean Wehrli:
That segues great for motivations, I was thinking. So you have this emotional motivation. You have the classic kind of time and convenience or impressing the neighbors or confusing the cat, but what other kind of motivations are there for having this connected home? You hit on one that most people don’t think about, that emotional connection.
Jamie Siminoff:
I mean, yeah, it’s … What we are doing and the package that we are giving you enables you whether you are at home or away to really have full control and oversight on the home. So whether it’s your water, your locks, your internet, seeing who’s coming in and out, the access control, the temperature, making sure it’s secure or not secure when you want people to be able to get in, so really we are giving you that full control. Then to Eric’s point, if you want to go further, if you want cameras inside your house, great. There’s lots of camera manufacturers that make those, including us. You can add those in. You have amazing internet in every nook and cranny so you can just plop them in there, plug them in and you’re good to go.
It really is like sort of if you want to go to that next level on anything, it’s enabling you to do it, but the base package is, I think for most people, taking care of what you need and then Ring, to Eric’s point of this sort of app where you sort of getting tired of all these apps-
Eric Feder:
Fatigue.
Jamie Siminoff:
This fatigue, having this one app selfishly does make a nice experience.
Dean Wehrli:
Yeah, and I remember when my kids were young, in the old days, was the little monitor thing and you heard a noise, had to go run in there. Now you have your camera on your baby and it’s right there.
Eric, are there home buyer segments, niches of home buyers, that are more or less accepting of this kind of technology?
Eric Feder:
Yes. The obvious is we built active adult communities, which there’s a generation out there that this doesn’t really resonate with. Am I choking you up? Okay. That this doesn’t resonate with. And then we’ll find ourselves building in and around tech hubs. Seattle, Austin, south Florida. Now we’re seeing millennials come out and buying in droves. This is a very appealing proposition, and again I don’t think this is would be nice to have, I think this is a must have. I think this is a standard for our industry and I think what Jamie has curated, and there’s no Lennar authorship here, I think there should be an industry standard for the entire home building industry.
Look, what I’ve learned in my limited time in the Valley dealing with a lot of tech founders, there’s a ton of hubris in and amongst these founder types. Jamie and Ring, they know what they don’t know. They’re not in the lock business, but yet they were willing and open to putting a third party lock manufacturer on their platform, a smart water valve manufacturer on their platform, Honeywell on their platform. So that, to us, was extremely appealing. Others are very closed network and not so accepting of bringing others on board. I mean, that Level lock, if you haven’t seen it, is a category killer. I mean, the days of having a clunky keypad with this battery pack on the inside of your home, arguably the front door should be the most sacred, elegant part of the experience when people walk into your home. It sets sort of the tone of that initial experience … it’s the first visual that one encounters and this lock, this is the most genius product and what they did, we’re so happy to have this as part of our offering and the way Jamie and Ring have just welcomed Level into their family has been incredible.
Dean Wehrli:
You know, it is interesting how the gee whiz item or feature becomes the expected standard in this industry-
Eric Feder:
Yes.
Dean Wehrli:
Seems like what’s happening now.
Eric Feder:
And it’s going to continue. I mean, technology, innovation happens as we all know at a very rapid pace. The fact that we have a partner that’s going to continue to innovate within their own organization and continue to work with others that are innovating outside of their organization was very important to us. So that’s pretty special.
Dean Wehrli:
I want to … Eric, I want to challenge you a little bit on the age qualified thing. I’ve always found that maybe counterintuitively, those folks can be very … I mean, they’re not going to be leading edge, but they love those kind of features when it becomes easy to use and becomes something that their neighbors start doing.
Eric Feder:
I couldn’t agree more, as long as it’s simple. I’ll sort of equate it to … What’s it called? The Butterfly cell phone? They made it very easy … I might be off on the brand. I’m not plugging. I have nothing to do with whatever this telephone is. But anyway, it was a cell phone that was … There are certain age demographics that don’t need a smart phone. A very simple … A phone with very large numbers that accomplishes-
Jamie Siminoff:
Jitterbug.
Eric Feder:
What’s that?
Jamie Siminoff:
Jitterbug.
Eric Feder:
Jitterbug.
Jamie Siminoff:
I think it’s Jitterbug, right?
Eric Feder:
Maybe that was it. Jitterbug.
Jamie Siminoff:
I think it’s Jitterbug.
Dean Wehrli:
… sidekick? No.
Eric Feder:
Jitterbug, right. I apologize about the butterfly slip. But anyway, notwithstanding that, I think yes, I agree with you. What we’ve put together here and now is user friendly across all age brackets, call it, and it is much simpler than previous versions of our connected home, or smart home.
Dean Wehrli:
Jamie, you were going to say something?
Jamie Siminoff:
I think that those cell phone’s a good example of where … You try to put the features out there that are used and easy and you try to … For us, it’s always make it so that you don’t even realize you’re using technology. Bring it to the background point to where you sort of forget that it’s technology and that it’s just, again, Flow. I have one on my house and when a toilet is running, it’s amazing. It says, “You’re using … Something’s going on in your house.” Basically, “What do you want us to do? I’m going to shut the water off in the next three minutes,” and if wasn’t home or didn’t see it, I wouldn’t let the water run, which in southern California it’s like a precious resource, if it was something leaking and so just kind of doing the things. You forget that that’s technology behind it. It’s just something that’s happening that’s making your experience in your home better.
Dean Wehrli:
Eric, you mentioned a minute ago about how you introduced this in places like Seattle and Silicon Valley. It’s more easily accepted, or very easily accepted. Are there regions where it is and isn’t more easily acceptable, or do you see it being pretty homogenous?
Eric Feder:
I think it’s homogenous. I just think in those cities I mentioned earlier, it’s just expected. It’s almost like buying a car and it doesn’t have power windows. The Wi-Fi guarantee, the most robust Wi-Fi system possible is expected. The listening stuff, it’s … Look, I drive a car that’s got the audio command. I’ve never used it. How many people actually use that feature in their car? They’re going to use their power windows. I think that it’s generally accepted, it’s homogenous, and in certain markets it’s a must, an absolute must.
Dean Wehrli:
Jamie, I’m going to put you on the spot here. Has Ring truly, literally impacted crime and crime rates and you’re going to need bring receipts for this one, all right?
Jamie Siminoff:
I mean, as I told you, our mission is around making neighborhoods safer. We’ve literally helped with people in our Neighbors app from finding lost pets and literally lost people in the neighborhood. Just recently with the power outages in Texas, people are using the Neighbors app, it was on Good Morning America, to connect with each other for food and water and who needed it and so again, that connection of the community is so important.
Then when it comes to crime, I think it was a few weeks ago that we have a video of someone to trying a catalytic converter, which is a thing that happens, off of someone’s car and they were able to scare them off with the Ring device. So I would say that was a definite … That person was shushed off the property and did not steal the catalytic convertor.
It is definitely … We feel very comfortable that is helping and making neighborhoods safer, but it’s also … Again, it’s making them better. It’s not just about this like sort of hard crime concept. It is finding lost pets. It is helping with getting a neighbor food when they need it in a crisis like the power outage. It’s much more rounded I think than just that.
Dean Wehrli:
Yeah, but I was joking about the receipts. I think it’s incredibly intuitive that it has to have an impact on that. Porch piracy, I haven’t seen the numbers, but that has to be going down because just the fear of Ring. I’m thinking. That’s my thought.
Jamie Siminoff:
I mean, we definitely … We know anecdotally that we’re impacting lots of things. I think anyone’s who’s on this, probably, if you watch the local news, it’s hard to go a day or two without seeing some sort of story with a Ring video doorbell video showing something in a positive way did something for the community.
Dean Wehrli:
Yeah. Now, this could be for both of you but maybe start with Eric. The main competition typically for a new home is an existing home, is resales, for the most part. Do you consider constant innovation and constant change and elevation of the connected home as a way to counter, effectively, the appeal of your main competition, resale homes, to make it harder for them to come up to your … To retrofit an existing home to the standards that are embedded in a connected home?
Eric Feder:
I think for sure. We have the benefit of starting with a blank piece of paper and installing a lot of these things during the manufacturing process, the production process. Things like the water valve, things like the hubs for our Wi-Fi, the doorbell, the thermostats and the lock. Yes, this is a big differentiator, something that all new home builders are embracing to compete with the existing housing stock. No question about it.
Dean Wehrli:
Yeah. But just to be clear, Jamie, from your perspective though, this is something that can be accommodated within most homes. Is that fair?
Jamie Siminoff:
Yeah, I mean, I’d ask Eric to just cover his ears for a second, little earmuffs. We do certainly build for the do it yourself, retrofit homeowner. Obviously partnering with a home builder, to Eric’s point, you can place things better, you have the opportunity when you’re building a new house to think some of this stuff through versus retrofit, but certainly some of our products go all the way to their entirely battery operated or solar so even if you didn’t wire something, you can use the battery operated doorbell at the front door. I mean, it’s amazing, but over 50% of homes do not working, wired wires at the doorbell site. Now, that’s not new homes, obviously, but on remodels or older homes that are in the stock.
So we do try to build for that retrofit, but what we’re doing here, and this is where it’s great, is that with Lennar we’re able to now develop I’d say the best in breed, best in class kind of in the lab, if you will, because we have this sort of clean sheet to work around and then they’re being very nice and letting us bring that down in the remodel, into the retrofit, into that other side of the market and that knowledge in bringing it down. So in some ways, they are assisting this competitors which is … I think something I’ve seen and learned from Lennar is that they’re actually open to sort of wanting to bring the entire industry up, which is a very nice way to look at it, I think.
Dean Wehrli:
Actually, okay. Eric might have to put his earmuffs back on here for a minute, but this whole-
Eric Feder:
I’m happy to drop off.
Dean Wehrli:
How are … It’s not going to just be Lennar, right, in the future here. How are other new home builders going to get in on the Ring action?
Jamie Siminoff:
We’re actively reaching out to home builders. We have a home builder division that’s looking at doing this, from people that are building, I’d say, one spec house all the way up to full communities and we have different packages that we can offer. We like this Lennar package that we put together, which I’ll call it the Lennar package even though it’s just sort of a package of products together, but Level Lock. As Eric was talking about, we think that is a game changer in locks and they see that the smart lock looks like a regular, the joy, the sort of excitement of seeing that and not this big battery on the back, I think it’s really interesting.
I do think we have sort of best in breed set of products, now, that we can bring to the home builders to put in and retrofitters and even going all the way down.
Dean Wehrli:
I like that best in breed, by the way. You stole that from the American Kennel Club, am I right?
Jamie Siminoff:
Probably.
Dean Wehrli:
Okay.
Eric Feder:
He is a member of the AKC. So Dean, there’s no reason for me to put on earmuffs relative to our peers in the home building industry. Everything we do in LENx relative to technology, it’s our goal to work with these technology companies to become the best version of themselves, to learn the intricacies of the home building industry and to roll it out to the rest of the industry. Nothing we do is proprietary to Lennar and that is pretty unique.
We as home builders, our competition is not necessarily each other. It is the existing home market. So we compete for land, we compete for customers, but once a customer has made a decision, we should all give them the best experience possible and differentiate the new housing market, is my belief.
Dean Wehrli:
No, you’re exactly right. Technology really has become one of the main key differentiators. It was ceiling height or something like that, or plumbing or something like that, but now it seems like technology is that way that the new home sector differentiates from the resale sector. How do you see this playing out with home buildings in the home building industry as a whole? Do you see this, Eric, as just kind of revolutionizing the home builder sector?
Eric Feder:
This technology?
Dean Wehrli:
Yeah.
Eric Feder:
I do. I think we’re in the very early innings. I think that fasten your seat belt. There is plenty to come and we have a tremendous edge, for reasons we stated earlier, and yeah, I do think it’s going to differentiate us.
Dean Wehrli:
How about the home buyer? Are we training the home buyer to expect some new and wow constantly and incessantly?
Jamie Siminoff:
I would actually say I think what we’re doing is we’re … I wouldn’t … I find it almost revolutionizing. We’re standardizing this. There’s plumbing in every home. It’s standard. There’s electricity, there’s outlets in every home every … Every one would know here how many feet. I know it’s some sort of thing, but it’s there.
I think we’re standardizing on what the bar is for a new home and I think that it’s revolutionary in terms of that it’s happening now, but I don’t think in ten years you would a home build without these core pieces in them and it’s going to be expected.
Dean Wehrli:
Yeah. I … go ahead, Eric.
Eric Feder:
No, it’s just … Look. It’s one less thing that a home purchaser has to think about and that in itself … Think about all the decisions. The process of purchasing a home is fraught with friction. Call it T to T15. The first fifteen days of owning a home. The decisions you have to make, the subscriptions, there is so much that goes on. To include this and make this … By the way, a lot of the things, the decisions that people have to make, they need this connectivity to do these things. So it’s part of making the customer journey of purchasing a home and living in their home elegant.
Dean Wehrli:
So not just standard, really, but necessary.
Eric Feder:
That’s the point.
Jamie Siminoff:
I mean, especially when it comes to Wi-Fi, that is … I always get laughed at because of my Jersey accent, but that is water. That is-
Eric Feder:
Utility.
Jamie Siminoff:
That is a utility. That is plumbing. Electricity. I think it’s expected it should work and when you move in, if you don’t have Wi-Fi, all these other ancillary things that are not just about technology but your kids doing Zoom school. There’s just so much there.
Dean Wehrli:
Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, we’ve already come to that point where we forget how basic and necessary and foundational this stuff is.
Jamie, I have a request from … I’m not your mother in law, I think your mother, or I’m not a widow either, but we have a Ring Pro sitting on the table behind me since Christmas. Is there any chance you can come up and … It has to be hardwired.
Jamie Siminoff:
I’ve done a lot of installs in my time. I’m happy to do another one. I love nothing more. By the way, besides the … It is funny, but that’s part of how I learn about this and when you say surveys, my survey is going to someone’s house and installing a Ring, an eero, a floodlight cam, running into the problems that I would have with it, talking to my team. I do that constantly because I think that’s better than any survey is that sort of direct, ground level information.
Dean Wehrli:
I’m glad my wife’s not here because she’s be running in to say, “I know how to do it. I just haven’t had time.” She’s very angry with me right now.
Let’s end this portion with a look forward, a glimpse into your crystal ball. So what, to the degree you can let us know, what’s next for connected home? What’s next for Ring? Any glimpse you can share with us?
Jamie Siminoff:
Again, to me, it’s about we’re going to continue to add and this will accelerate us adding more inventions and more things around where we can help make … Enable the home to be better for you. Our drone, which is coming out later this year, is a great example of that which is indoor cameras can feel invasive. The drone is for when you’re out of the house and the bedroom door goes ajar and your alarm is on. Now you have a camera that you can actually have there, you can see what’s going on but totally in a privacy-centric way that then goes back and goes into a little place and you don’t even see it’s not being used and it’s sort of in its privacy.
Things like that, we want to be able to leverage new technology, leverage things that are coming down the pike, but do it in a way that really adds that value for the homeowner and specifically here for this package that we’re doing today for the communities.
Dean Wehrli:
Eric, what’s your thoughts on the future for connected homes?
Eric Feder:
You know, we leave that to the inventors. We’re very low IQ. We just build homes and we rely on bright minds like Jamie to just keep on innovating and keeping us current and make sure that we don’t become the next Blockbuster.
I also have to say, Dean, I now understand why you got so sensitive relative to the adult community. It’s because you now qualify. I’m not going to tell you who said that. [inaudible 00:44:13] Burns.
Dean Wehrli:
Wow. Okay. That’s cool.
Eric Feder:
I get it, and I apologize if I offended you. I certainly did not mean to offend you. Your Jitterbug is coming. I’ve got that coming. Just send me your address.
Dean Wehrli:
I want the reinvention of the Sidekick because it has the little keyboard that flipped out. I need the big letters. I’m not wearing my glasses out of vanity, so yeah, all those things are a trip.
It does seem to me, though, that the adaptability is the key to this though, right? You can accommodate those gadget accumulators and those folks by just … I imagine, Jamie, you started with the package you have which is sensational, but it’s going to grow and change over near term, right?
Jamie Siminoff:
By being an open platform, you can add Alexa, which has 160 thousand integrations to it that come through and so yeah, if you want to, you can go down the sort of the long road of adding whatever you want or just one single little piece. That’s what we love about it.
Dean Wehrli:
Please don’t say the A word so loud, because it might start talking.
Jamie Siminoff:
I know, I know. I apologize.
Jenni Nichols:
Okay, Dean, I know we’re at time.
Dean Wehrli:
Okay.
Jenni Nichols:
Awesome webinar and amazing questions. I loved the wrap up questions and thank you both for being on the webinar. It was a blast to hear from you guys and I think you guys all had a lot of fun, as far as I can tell. Â Thank you for joining us.
Jenni Nichols:
Thank you all. Have a great day.
Eric Feder:
Dean, thank you.
Dean Wehrli:
All right. Right on. See ya.
