The new company will manufacture Hide, the recessed electrical outlet that integrates Alexa for the US market, marking the entry of smart speakers into the power socket sector.
Jiangsu Shushi Technology Ltd, also called as Third Reality, officially is Amazon ACS (Amazon Common Software) Solutions Provider to develop smart home devices designed for the Alexa system.
Italy Innovazioni S.p.A. is an engineering research company listed on the Euronext Access+ stock exchange market in Paris, which core business is the development of innovative technological solutions and the licensing of intellectual property assets in a variety of fields.
After a one-year technological and market assessment, the two companies have created 3Reality Hide Inc., a company under US law through which the Italian IP Company (which owns 51%) and the Sino-American manufacturer will develop, produce and market together Hide, the innovative recessed electric outlet which, unique in the world, integrates an Amazon Alexa smart speaker inside.
The project stems from an initiative of Italy Innovazioni, which presented the first prototype of its Hide in the Alexa version at the 2019 edition of the CES in Las Vegas. Hide is the socket that hides the plug inside the wall, thus avoiding leaving visible sockets and plugs, which are hidden behind an elegant cover. However, thanks to the engineering carried out on the product, the cover itself can accommodate any smart home device inside.
The idea was appreciated by the US Amazon Alexa Voice Service team, which, taking advantage of the great market opportunities offered by Italian intuition, activated a synergy between Italy Innovazioni and Jiangsu with the aim of making this functional and technological innovation a real product. With the establishment of the NewCo, the project is now entering its executive phase.
Giorgio Rende, president and CEO of Italy Innovazioni S.p.A. who will also hold the position of chairman of the board of the NewCo, declared: “Hide is an idea that is already a reality in Italy and in Europe and now, thanks to Amazon’s trust and harmony with our partners in Jiangsu, it will be able to in the USA with a very high profile of technological development. Hide will deeply mark the smart home and voice assistants sector. ”
Nanfang Hu, COO of Jiangsu Shushi and CEO of NewCo, shares this same spirit and declares: “Hide is an idea that pairs perfectly with our expertise in the smart home field. Jiangsu Shushi’s core business consists of the development of devices that simply transform regular home devices to be smart, voice controlled and automated and Hide is the perfect system to be able to distribute voice-controlled technology in every room of the home and office, to offer more comfort. but also greater control over energy consumption. ”
The parties were assisted by the Energy & Efficiency team of the Ernest & Young law firm, with Mattia Petrillo and Lorenzo Sperti, and by the Tronca law firm with the partner Giuseppe De Carlo.
The launch of the new socket is expected by 2021 with a range consisting of three versions in a market, the USA, where almost 90 million smart speakers and 130 million electrical sockets were sold in 2020.
Italy Innovazioni currently has a capital increase in progress aimed at developing the Hide project and other initiatives not only in the smart home sector.