Savant, the 15-year-old smart home company best known for providing high-end home-control components to professional installers, has announced a deal to acquire the storied GE Lighting brand from the General Electric company.
Terms of the deal, which is expected to close later this year, weren’t disclosed, although the Wall Street Journal reports that the sale price is about $250 million and includes a long-term license for the GE brand. General Electric licenses its brand to several other manufacturers, including the smart-home device manufacturer Jasco.
The 130-year-old GE Lighting division, which includes the C by GE smart lighting brand, and its 700-odd employees will remain at its Cleveland, Ohio headquarters, Savant said.
“We are committed to ensuring that GE Lighting’s long history of industry leadership continues, while bringing exceptional value and reliability to retail partners and consumers as the number one intelligent lighting company worldwide,” said Savant CEO Robert Madonna in a press release.
Savant’s smart home portfolio ranges from smart lighting and security to speakers, remote controls, and whole-home audio; but until recently, the company has focused on selling its wares to custom installers rather than consumers.
That started to change in January, when Savant’s sister company, Racepoint Energy, acquired Noon Home, which manufactures a family of well-regarded (and very expensive) smart dimmer switches. With its acquisition of GE Lighting, Savant clearly looks to be moving into the retail smart home market.
For its part, GE Lighting offers a vast selection of LED and incandescent bulbs and lighting products, including its C by GE smart lighting brand. We previously reviewed C by GE’s C-Life and C-Sleep smart bulbs, which we praised for their “bright” and “pleasant” light, although we complained about the “needlessly convoluted” C by GE mobile app.
More recently, C by GE unveiled a series of new in-wall smart switches and dimmers at CES, including hub-less models that work without neutral wiring.