i3 - July/August 2018 - 12

Tech

By Susan Schreiner

C 4 T R E N DS

There's No Place like a Smart Home

mart, connected technologies are developing at an
exponential rate. These innovations - including cloud
computing and platform technologies, big data and
analytics, mobile solutions, Internet of Things (IoT) technology, speech and artificial intelligence (AI) - are accelerating the
digital transformation in the home and influencing the creation
of new products and services.

By 2020 there will be 30 billion
connected devices and a smart
home will generate 50 GB of
data every day, according to
Microsoft. What trends will
influence the smart home's
acceptance, growth and
sustainability?
Whole platforms and ecosystems have yet to resonate with
consumers causing frustration
to grow around this fragmented
technology not yet meeting its
value proposition. Singular solutions are further complicating the
journey to the smart home.

JULY/AUGUST 2018

cumbersome. However, the end-result
removes the habitual need to use a
smartphone to control the home. Each
person can dim lights, view a live
stream, play music or turn on an appliance - without needing to find the one
smartphone in the house that has the
passcode and apps.
Tablet-styled touch panels, or inhome displays (IHD), feature another
essential user interface. While IHDs
allow anyone in the home, friends or

3. Energy management. Smart homes
require intelligent energy management.
Beyond controlling the heat inside the
house to ensure it's optimal, and that
electric vehicle charging points are operational, expect to see services like weather
forecasting combining with other utility
services rather than remaining a separate
app. New services will emerge, due to the
increasing availability of smart meters
and solar panels. Homes will generate
their own energy supply and also be able
to sell the excess back to the national
grid. These developments will bring the
smart home closer to expectations.

CONTACT: Reach Susan at
susan@c4trends.com
I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

Vladgrin/Getty Images

2. Comfort and security.
Increased convenience and
improved quality of life is driving
sales of smart home products. It's
about activating the thermostat
and pre-heating the oven on your
drive home in the evening, or having a smart refrigerator that orders
the food items you need restocked.
Similarly, peace of mind is another
fundamental reason why consumers buy
smart home devices. For example, security
cameras enable you to see what's happening when you're not home or monitor your
baby from afar. And smart doorbells can
see who's at the door if you're away.

Three Trends for the
Ultimate Smart Home

1. Simplification. For many consumer
tech creators, there's a simple philosophy behind improving the consumer
experience: less buttons. While the
industry is further along in making new
user interface (UI) technologies ubiquitous, the need to reduce complex
interoperability is still an obstacle.
To simplify UI, artificial
intelligence (AI) and voice assistants
are essential. While they are not yet
commonplace, about 220 million
voice-controlled smart home devices
are forecast by 2021.
Voice assistants allow for a more
engaged consumer but challenges
remain. For instance, a voice assistant
doesn't work with smart home devices
out-of-the-box, but must be set up and
linked to new products and apps. As a
result, the initial setup remains

family, to interact with the smart home
- they need to become more userfriendly and affordable.
The combination of voice and display
will enable a more immersive experience,
where everyone in a home can engage
with the ecosystem. Prolonged voice and
touch engagement will enable devices to
collect data, learn routines/behaviors,
detect patterns and ultimately create an
autonomous experience that anticipates your needs.

i3 - July/August 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of i3 - July/August 2018