Microsoft Beats Apple and Google to Acquire Home Automation Firm R2 Studios

Apple, Google and Microsoft have all been circling id8 Group Productions, producer of home automation software R2, and founded by Slingbox founder - Blake Krikorian. Tonight, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft has won the race and that they purchased the product, patents and will be joined by team members as well.

R2 enables residential and commercial customers to control AV, lighting, thermostats, security systems, and thousands of other products via their Android device from anywhere in the world.

R2 was developed by id8 Group Productions, a product development and technology lab. Co-founder and inventor of Emmy award-winning Slingbox, Blake Krikorian founded id8 Group Holdings (parent company of id8 Group Productions) in 1999. R2 is the first product developed by id8 Group since the Slingbox was spun out in 2004 to form Sling Media, Inc. Sling Media was subsequently acquired by Echostar in 2007.

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