Imagine if you were out and about, maybe in a different country, and you forgot to lock the back door, feed the cats, or turn the water off. Home automation promise’s to help you with these dilemmas. This is just one of the positives of having a connected home. Personally, I think Connected homes will be standard in all homes in the future. Already homes are implementing smart fridges, smart dishwashers, smart lights and so many other smart products. But what are the positives and negatives of a smart homes, what are some products on the market today.
Connected homes make life easier. Connected homes allow people to control appliances in their home with ease from a switch in the wall, to a phone or other device. Smart appliances allow for use away from the unit, distances that could be 10 meters from the couch, to 10,000 km in Australia. This is possible using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other protocols. Every day there are more devices on the market, and more choices for consumers.
In the past 2-3 years, the market has seen an influx of new home automation products. One story that made the headlines is that Google bought a company called nest for 3.6 billion NZD. Nest made thermostat’s and smoke alarms, that in the thermostats case, allow you to change the temperature when away from the unit, it to learn what temperature you like it at, and the time you get home from work, so it can adjust the temperature to save money. Another example of home automation is the Philip’s HUE light system. These are lights that you can operate via an app or battery-free controller. The lights can be almost any colour, and people can create a “mood” with the lights making up different colours.
Having more devices available may seen like a good thing, but these products are produced by different companies, so you have different apps for each appliance. At WWDC 2014, Apple released a platform called Home Kit, which allows developers to integrate apps within iOS to give users one place to control their homes, and give features like asking Siri to “turn off the oven in 30 minutes," “close to garage door” and many more useful commands. Check out this article that outlines what this could mean in the future.In the future, more products will hopefully support this technology.
Home automation is a rising technology with heaps of potential. But there are many problems to overcome for home automation to be in every house. The first is price. Price is probably the biggest hurdle to overcome, and will be fixed only when prices come down on the internal parts, and the technology is older and outdated. Another problem is that most products are not “cross platform”. This means that the product will only work with a certain device, such as a iPhone. This could be fixed if product manufacturers allow their products to be used with all devices, or if someone comes up with one protocol that companies embrace, and use. Like i said earlier, Apple is already trying to do this with Home Kit, but the downside of this that in the foreseeable future, Apple will not allow other phones to access the platform, which could make people more likely to buy a Apple device.
Home automation is a rising technology with much potential.I think that this technology will be standard in all homes in the future. In the past 2-3 years, the market has seen an influx of new home automation products, including the Philip’s HUE light system. Apple showed off a platform called Home Kit, which allows developers to integrate apps within iOS to give users one place to control their homes. There are many problems to overcome, such as price and platform compatibility.
