Artificial intelligence is eating the world, one industry at a time and it’s eating the housing industry. We are on the verge of a new era of the “smart home”. Home automation brings the home alive. In the smart home, a home’s attributes, such as lighting, entertainment systems, climate and appliances can be monitored and/or controlled. This can also extend to home security, with automation of alarm systems and access control. Home devices that are connected to the internet form part of the Internet of Things (IoT). The possibilities of the smart home are many and as more and more homes become automated, we are getting to a tipping point before mass adoption.
Why Does the Smart Home Matter?
Home automation promises to bring all the key features of your home as well as any gadgets under one seamless central smart home hub (or “gateway”). In a smart home, you will be able to control everything in your home with voice commands, saving you time, making your home more convenient, as well as saving on energy use and costs.
How Are Smart Homes Set Up?
This is a massive evolution in the nature of the home and it’s a future that you can literally help build. The technology behind the smart home is designed to be installable by its users. Firms such as ADT believe that the DIY nature of smart homes will make them more attractive to homeowners. The company’s DIY smart home security system is an example of this. It is an intelligent system for the protection of your household goods, from your Creative Cabinets to pot plants, and it is powered by AI and controlled and installed by the consumer.
At present, most DIY systems do take some tech savvy, but engineers are moving toward DIY solutions, but at present, consumers have to settle for “Do It For Me” or DIFM solutions. This entails having a professional install the system for you, and working to reduce the number of apps, hardware devices and switches that are needed to control the system.
Can I Use Different Smart Home Devices Together?
Interoperability is not an inherent feature of the internet. This is also true of IoT devices. However, a new industry standard, Matter, promises to bring missing interoperability to the smart home industry.
Matter is the product of the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), under whom device makers have promised to use Matter as the industry standard for future products. Consumers shopping for smart home devices will be able to operate all of them within the same gateway, so long as they carry the Matter logo. Matter will become the industry standard in 2023.
The CSA is composed of tech giants such as Google, Amazon, and Apple, so there is some serious backing behind the standard. Experts believe that it will be in wide use by 2024 or 2025.
Matter will ensure that not only are smart home devices connected to the internet, but that their devices can talk to each other and co-exist in a safe and sustainable way.