AT&T home automation service Digital Life has launched in seven new cities — Baltimore, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, and Washington, D.C. — bringing the service to a total of 22 markets in the U.S.

We first got a look at Digital Life back in May 2012, but it finally launched in 15 major markets a month ago. The service competes with Verizon’s Home Monitoring and Control system and Comcast’s Xfinity Home.

Digital Life gives users management over many functions in their home, including a 24-hour security system, climate control, and lights. There’s also advanced controls to let you lock doors and windows remotely and check carbon monoxide levels and water pipes. AT&T offers up mobile applications for iOS, Android, and Windows Phones that let you control these functions whether you are at home or away.

The basic version of the service costs $30 per month with an initial $150 equipment fee that includes a battery backup, wireless keypad entry, key chain remotes, sensors, and an indoor siren. The premium “smart security” version costs $40 per month with a $250 equipment fee that includes a motion sensor, carbon monoxide sensor, glass break sensor, smoke sensor, and takeover kit. Premium users can also sign up for additional packages for advanced camera, energy, water, and door management.

Photo via Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

After missing its initial launch target date, AT&T has finally rolled out its home automation service Digital Life to 15 major areas today.

The service itself provides homeowners with 24-hour security surveillance; you can watch video cameras and remotely lock doors and windows, and you can also set your climate control system, monitor carbon monoxide detectors, control your lights, and even check your water pipes for leaks. To do this, you use Digital Life mobile apps that are available on Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. The service has been in beta testing in both Atlanta and Dallas since last year, as VentureBeat previously reported.

The company plans to eventually roll out Digital Life to over 50 different markets by the end of the year, but the initial roll out includes Atlanta, Austin, Boulder, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Riverside, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, and parts of New York and New Jersey.

As for pricing, Digital Life will set you back $30 per month for its basic plan and an initial $150 equipment fee that includes a battery backup, wireless keypad entry, key chain remotes, sensors, and an indoor siren. You can upgrade the service with more sensors that will tack on an additional $10 per month, plus installation. But unlike rival Verizon’s home automation system, AT&T isn’t forcing you to be a wireless customer to sign up for Digital Life.

Check out the demo video below for a closer look at the Digital Life service, and let us know your thoughts in the comment section.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

AT&T’s quest to attract developers (and make you hate it less) is off to a strong start in 2013.

Today at AT&T’s Developer Summit Keynote, held alongside CES in Las Vegas, the carrier announced three new platforms to show its commitment to new technologies: Digital Life, a nationwide home security and automation service; Mobile Payments; and Connected Car. To give an idea of what’s possible with smarter cars, AT&T showed a video that featured a car with a huge touchscreen and a life-like voice.

The three platforms aren’t anything new for the tech industry, but by announcing its support, AT&T is placing a very public bet on the future. And of course, it helps that all of these platforms will be intimately tied to its mobile network.

Before diving into the above platforms, AT&T chief technology officer David Christopher discussed a few of the telecom giant’s new API solutions. AT&T is working on a new advertising API that will give 80 percent of revenue to developers, as well as a Call Management API.

Digital Life will launch in eight markets in March. The home security aspect will be monitored 24/7 by call centers in Atlanta and Dallas.

“This market is completely unpenetrated,” said Glenn Lurie, the president of emerging enterprises for AT&T. He pointed out that less than 20 percent of U.S. homes had some sort of home security, even though AT&T’s own research found that many more consumers wanted it. Mostly, AT&T found that consumers wanted more features and value out of home security.

Digital Life is more than just home security for AT&T. It also provides the capability to control just about everything in your home. You can use it to set the temperature and energy consumption in your home while you’re out. It can send you a notification if you have a water leak, and it will even be able to completely shut off the water. AT&T has built apps for every mobile platform, as well as HTML 5.

“It gives you control of your home again anyplace, anytime you want it,” Lurie said.

AT&T announced its new Digital Life home automation system this morning, and we got to see the system in action in a New Orleans home during this week’s CTIA Wireless show.

The solution will compete with Verizon’s Home Monitoring and Control system and Comcast’s Xfinity Home, but from our first look, it’s pretty cool and will likely stack up well. Hacking your house isn’t easy, but Digital Life has apps and cool tricks to set AT&T’s version of the home of the future apart.

Digital Life is centered around apps that control your appliances and security. These apps are built on iOS, Android, as well as HTML5 for other web-enabled devices. Using the apps, you can see real-time feeds from cameras, turn lights on and off, close the blinds, or even lock the door while you’re away. You can even call a 24-hour security monitoring company maintained by AT&T and sound loud alarms by just moving a single sensor. The sensor will also turn on all the lights in the house if triggered.

“This is a traditional security system on steroids,” an AT&T representative told us, taking a shot at ADT, Broadview, and other security companies.

The connections to appliances are created using individual “control modules” that attach to an electrical outlet. You then plug an appliance into the module to create a wireless connection. The control module itself is the least futuristic part of the system, and it looks like a dumb white box. (Check out the last slide in the slideshow below to see how un-cool it looks.)

AT&T will run trials of the new service in Dallas and Atlanta this summer, with a national roll out in 3G-enabled areas coming some time after that. As you enable more appliances for wireless control, the cost will go up, creating a fairly customizable solution. The company refused to talk exact pricing, but I expect the initial setup and the several modules to cost a pretty penny.

Check out the gallery below to see more pictures of AT&T Digital Life in action: