iiNet Wants To Budii Up To You

What do you get if you feed iiNet’s BoB a healthy dose of steroids? Budii, a combined modem, Android handset and tablet device that iiNet says it’ll start selling soon.

iiNet’s just announced Budii a combination home gateway, phone and tablet system which will cost $399 outright when it’s available “soon”. That $399 package, or for $19.95/month over 24 months with an iiNet broadband plan gets you the home gateway and a single handset. There will also be a Budii tablet, but that will be sold separately for an undisclosed price.

The tablet and handset run on Android — again, version and specs aren’t as yet disclosed — and will form part of a larger ecosystem for home energy monitoring that iiNet says has been co-developed with the CSIRO called SmartLife. It’s not yet clear whether iiNet customers who already own, say, a BoB modem and a different Android tablet will be able to use all of these services, although there is mention of some access for Android and Apple devices. I’ve put a query through to iiNet for clarification.

What the release does say is that the hub itself will be dual band 2.4 and 5GHz with seven gigabit ethernet ports, supports external storage and can charge both a single handset and the Budii tablet. Budii also supports the Zigbee standard, although at day one iiNet doesn’t expect to have any Zigbee applications up and running. The Budii tablet appears to only come in white with a 2 megapixel front facing camera and support for microSD expansion up to 32GB.

Budii appears at first glance to be a play towards the kind of market that Telstra targets with its T-Hub product, although it’s feasible the Budii might be a higher-end device. At the moment you can’t even sign up for a Budii, as iiNet’s simply taking expressions of interest with no clear indication of whether they’ll only offer them in limited quantities or to specific areas.
Budii [iiNet]