Part III of this series was the last part before this one. Manufacturers investing in chapter operating systems with their own circle of users and will grab even with smart home solutions to the already known, which also comes to compatibility in favour. The future solutions based on the Internet of Things in the Smart Home will play an indispensable role for consumers in the coming years, as more and more connected and intelligent devices will be in the market.
Internet of Things in the Smart Home : Future and Value
Refrigerators :
- Which will not only keep food in the future
- Which can check whether the shelf life of products has expired and output this information on displays on the outside of the refrigerator
- Which can map the weather forecast and adjust settings
Entertainment devices :
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Which matches music recognizing peoples in the room and then plays only the subset of matching music that pleases the people or comes close.
Vacuum cleaner robots :
- which features live videos sent from the vacuum cleaner to tablets/smartphones, and you can use a terminal to tell the vacuum cleaner where to clean it
- their camera can be used to send images to other devices as soon as motion is detected
- They may have Augmented Reality
Lamps :
which can be controlled by the built-in microphone or used as a baby monitor. Built-in speakers can also be used to play music.
Beds :
Which measure the quality of sleep, in which position you should sleep best, and how the heart rate and breathing behave to enable a healthy sleep.
Value-based consideration
To pinpoint the benefits in terms of numbers is not so easy when using smart home solutions, as the value and benefits vary according to the age group. Points that young people attach importance to or what is necessary for them may only play a minor role for older people, but solutions are more in demand here that are robust, fail-safe and intuitive to use. The geographical location also plays an important role. Depending on the area, the focus will be more on home air conditioning or the control of windows and heaters.
A benefit of the Internet of Things in the Smart Home is achieved by streamlining operations and optimizing costs. Energy management is the main factor, but other areas such as the irrigation should not be underestimated, as they also bring cost-saving potential.
Strengths
The strengths of the Internet of Things in the Smart Home lie in home automation, energy management but also increasing safety, which results in a higher quality of life.
The cost of everyday tasks (cleaning, cooking, shopping) is estimated by experts in 2025 at $ 23 trillion. With the help of home automation, independent vacuum cleaning or robotic lawnmowers can cut costs by up to 17 percent.
Through networking and suitable algorithms, solutions for heating and window control can independently learn when certain things should be done, such as the reduction of heating when nobody is at home or the automatic window control, which depending on the circumstances Temperature, humidity, outside temperature independently ventilates, such. open the window when no one is home. Here, synergy effects such as the exchange of data between surveillance camera and window control can offer a decisive added value.
Weaknesses
The biggest weaknesses are in the area of security and some solutions are dropped by security checks. Manufacturers, however, endeavour to accept and minimize these weaknesses.
Conclusion
The Internet of Things has huge potential, but it also brings with it great challenges and many questions. The biggest problem is security. Cross-vendor standards could be a big step towards compatibility and more security, but by implication they also mean greater vulnerability. Should standards not be used in their entirety or modified to meet the needs of their own company or allow standards to interpret and thereby accept their own solution proposals, even if they do not offer 100% security. Apart from the technical point of view, it remains to be seen whether the forecasts will arrive in this environment, because not everything that is technically feasible is desired by the consumers.
The amount of data generated has a lot of potential, but also risks in detecting causalities. The data on living and living habits are recorded and processed. The risk that these data may not only be used for its intended purpose or tapped by unauthorized third parties will make it more difficult for some users to make a purchase decision. Even today, users are overwhelmed by the possibilities of their smart phone and it is not transparent, which data is collected or processed. Because of this, users are increasingly turning to blocking certain data so that it is not delivered.
Recent studies show that the market will grow significantly until the year 2020. It is expected to have an expected market value of just under $60 billion in 2020. The IT market research institute Gartner predicts that in the year 2022, in an average family household, over 500 smart objects will be found.
The products presented are only a few, but they show very clearly that there will be convergences in certain areas. Also, the relationship and the general attitude towards smart home solutions will change in the coming years, leading to more choice and cost reductions for consumers. These will extend to holistic solutions and pick up/merge the different aspects of the points mentioned.
Consumer electronics companies already publish new solutions every year based on the Internet of Things in smart homes, which bring more functions with them each year and are already partially merging (vacuum cleaners, which can also be used as surveillance cameras).
If standards for the use of the Internet of Things in the smart home are implemented on a large scale and also supported by the major alliances, we will see a strong increase in overarching smart home solutions on the market in the coming years. If you also manage to be aware of the safety aspects and to tailor end customers to the new possibilities, including the transparent presentation of usage data and how they are processed, without losing sight of the intuitive approach, then the Internet of Things will become a reality Smart home will lead to added value in any situation.
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