Builder KB Home To Offer ‘Wellness’ Software As Smart Home Race Heats Up

KB Home today said it will begin offering home buyers technology to make their households healthier. Starting this spring the Los Angeles-based homebuilder will sell an add-on, known as Darwin, to buyers in California, with plans to eventually roll it out nationally. Darwin is designed by Delos, a New York-based technology startup that has raised over $200 million to develop what it calls “wellness real estate.” 

KB and Delos’ announcement follows a string of smart home integrations by major homebuilders. The deal is Delos’ first with a volume builder in the United States. In December Australia’s Simonds, which builds between 3,000 and 4,000 homes annually, piloted Darwin in the state of Victoria and now plans to incorporate the technology into every new home it builds. KB builds approximately 11,000 homes a year.

Delos Founder and CEO Paul Scialla calls Darwin a “wellness brain for the home.” The platform uses a combination of hardware and software to monitor and control air quality, water filtration and circadian lighting. Input your sleep schedule on the app and Darwin will automatically adjust your home’s lighting to mimic the rising and setting sun to help regulate your energy levels. Meanwhile, sensors measure allergens and other harmful substances in the air and kick filtration systems into overdrive if levels become too high. In the future Delos plans to integrate kitchen appliances, bathroom scales and other smart home or wearable devices.

“This is meant to take the conversation of smart home into smart-healthy,” says Scialla. “A home is not smart if it is not healthy.”

The companies declined to say exactly how much integrating Darwin will cost. In Australia, Scialla says, the technology adds around $20 to monthly payments on a $300,000 home with a 30-year mortgage. Sold individually, Darwin starts at about $3,500. For custom integrations, pricing depends on the amount of hardware needed and the quality of fixtures a homeowner chooses. (Delos builds the software, but relies on third-party hardware, which it says gives customers more options.)

Scialla started Delos in 2009. The former Goldman Sachs partner saw an opportunity to build a big business by combining the world’s largest asset class, real estate, with the fast growing health and wellness industry. To start he took a page from the LEED green-building movement, creating the Well Building Standard and selling commercial building certifications. Over 300 million square feet of office space has been deemed Well, including the Citi Tower in Hong Kong and Hyatt’s Chicago headquarters. Hotel chains MGM and the Four Seasons have partnered with Delos to install chemical-free mattresses and lighting designed to fight jet lag. By expanding into residential offerings, Delos is finally entering the space where people spend most of their time and money.

As for KB, its shares dropped 40% in 2018. A basket of homebuilding stocks declined 27%, as the housing market softened and homebuilders fought rising labor and material costs. These headwinds are forcing homebuilders to get creative to distinguish their properties and make the case for buying new.

In May, Lennar, one of KB’s largest competitors, began allowing Amazon to use its model homes as showrooms. KB Home has leaned hard into sustainability for over a decade and began offering Google Assistant technology in September. KB is also experimenting with producing homes in factories. (Both Delos and Google technology will be featured prominently in the KB Home ProjeKt, a model home of the future on display as a part of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.)

Says Dan Bridleman, head of sustainability and technology at KB: “Instead of health and wellness as an obscure thing here is a way to demonstrate how to use technology to make your home give back to you.”

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