Utility installed devices at breaker: All the utilities I’ve dealt with through Itron and the ZigBee Alliance envision a product distribution model where the user purchases and installs equipment independent of the utility or vendor. No one is promoting a service model of installers going into millions of homes to install and maintain equipment. Based on your article, I don’t see how Sequentric has overcome the objections of utilities and vendors on this point.

Chip cost and capability: ZigBee chip costs are not $5 per unit, at least not for Itron. I’m skeptical that Sequentric, with a proprietary approach, can get their radio costs down to $1, even if they are using mass market 433 chips. I’m also skeptical that the same mass-market chip that drives garage door openers can perform the security computations that utilities are asking for to keep their networks safe from cyber attack according to NERC CIP rules.

433 vs 900 MHz: Itron has experience with both of the frequencies and there doesn’t, to my knowledge, seem to be a large market advantage to 433. True it has a little more umph from being further down the spectrum, but that doesn’t seem like a major advantage. In real-world testing we’re finding ZigBee even at 2.4 GHz is performing just fine with range, interference, and obstacles. Mesh networking helps with all of that, and I didn’t get the sense that Sequentric does any sort of meshing.

Sequentric NOC: Others are taking this approach as well (see Tendril), so there doesn’t seem to be any differentiator for Sequentric here.

40% savings on electricity bills: This claim is beyond the high side of most research, pilots, and field data that I’ve seen. It’s also dependent on the rate structure the utility implements.

In your summary, you say that ZigBee devices need to defend their price premium against Sequentric and explain why the open-standard approach is better. First, I dispute the notion of a price premium, especially when you consider installation and maintenance costs of utility-owned equipment inside a residence. Two, open standard systems have a proven history of declining cost and increasing capability and innovation, all fostered by competition. Sequentric’s propriety system can’t claim that.

I’ll be interested to learn more about Sequentric and whether they really are all that. But right now, I don't see it.