Connecting Products, IoT & Smart Homes — Insights from Ecobee & Salesforce | DisrupTV Ep. 79

In DisrupTV Episode 79, hosts R “Ray” Wang and Vala Afshar are joined by:

  • Stuart Lombard, Founder & CEO of ecobee, a company known for smart home thermostats and connected home devices. 
  • Charlie Isaacs, CTO for Customer Connection at Salesforce, who leads thinking around connected devices, customer contexts, and how sales, service, and marketing can better leverage IoT & unified customer views. 

The conversation covers how product-connected ecosystems, customer context (including IoT / smart devices), and product-service integration are reshaping what customers expect from brands, as well as what companies must do to keep up.

Key Takeaways

From the episode, here are major insights:

IoT & Smart Devices are Changing Customer Expectations
Stuart Lombard described how ecobee has leveraged smart home devices not just for energy savings, but as a means to give customers more control, awareness, and integration. Smart thermostats are just one part of what a connected home becomes. 

Unified Customer Connection & Context Matters
Charlie Isaacs emphasized that having a 360-degree view of the customer (data from devices, usage, service, purchase history) allows companies to offer more relevant, timely, and contextual experiences. Departments (sales, marketing, service) need to connect better through shared data and orchestrated workflows. 

Design for Product-First / Device-First Contexts
When your product is connected (thermostats, sensors, etc.), you must think about design beyond just the hardware: firmware, software, updates, data flows, UI/UX across multiple platforms, reliability, and user trust (especially around privacy & data). Ecobee’s journey reflects balancing technical innovation, resilience, and user expectations. 

Smart Homes as the Next Platform
Stuart Lombard pointed out that connected homes may become a foundational platform for future consumer IoT, much like smartphones or PCs. As energy, environment, and user wellbeing become more central, devices that help manage these in smart, simple ways will win. 

Challenges: Integration, Trust, Affordability
The episode acknowledges that while devices & IoT offer promise, there are trade-offs. Data privacy, seamless integration, avoiding fragmentation (multiple disconnected devices), and maintaining affordability for consumers are real hurdles. Also, ensuring the devices are reliable and deliver long-term value.

Final Thoughts

  • Companies building in the smart product / IoT space must go beyond novelty. Success comes from delivering seamless, context-aware, reliable experiences that embed into daily life—not just pushing technology for tech’s sake.
  • Opportunity lies in integrating across data sources (device, service, usage) to build trust, anticipate needs, and provide value proactively. But this requires solid architecture, investment in customer privacy & data ethics, and ongoing reliability.
  • The connected home is not just devices—it’s platform, service, user behavior, environmental concerns, energy constraints. Those companies which align mission (e.g., sustainability, energy efficiency) with customer value have more durable advantage.
  • Partnerships and integration (with other devices, utility companies, platforms) are essential. Companies cannot succeed in isolated silos in the IoT world—ecosystem matters.

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Business Research Themes

Innovation and Product-led Growth, Next-Generation Customer Experience, Tech Optimization

Roles

Chief Customer Officer, Chief Digital Officer, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Product Officer, Chief Technology Officer