Connected but Not Smart

I like to stay away from the term “the Internet of Things”. It is too vague and doesn’t stand for or mean anything. It is simply a label for connected objects. It’s better to talk about connected products right now, since that is what we are seeing in the market. We can buy connected door locks, light bulbs, vacuum cleaners, sports equipment, ovens, and more, but when we look at most of these products, the task of connecting them has been achieved while the task of making them smarter is the next step. Before diving into that, let’s look at some statistics from a recent Lowe’s Survey.

1. 57% prefer DIY solutions over professionally installed systems
2. 62% claim security is the top beneficial reason to own smart home products
3. 48% believe smart home products would help cut costs and save money on energy bills
4. Women are more interested in the security benefits of connected home products while men more interested in the savings and convenience

Positive signals for the connected home. However, data I’ve seen on retail sales of connected home products suggest less than 10m are actively in use in the US. Analyst colleagues of mine who do these type of forecasts for a living are projecting that number to grow to 31m connected home products in use in the US. Not blockbuster numbers but this ball game is still early. However, I’m intentionally calling them “connected home” products rather than “smart home” products because intelligence is largely missing from these solutions.

The Home AI

I understand the words “artificial intelligence” give many people pause. The potential for artificial UIs, or cloud brain, for the smart home is the step I think is most interesting. I’ve been given a preview of this with the Amazon Echo. Accompanying my Amazon Echo is a series of products built around the Wink platform. I have connected thermostats, irrigation, lighting, door locks and security cameras. While still simplistic in nature, these products work with Amazon’s Echo and allow me to control them with my voice. I’ll admit the setup is still a bit technical but, once past that setup (and often troubleshooting), the voice UI is actually much easier for regular humans to interact with connected objects.

What makes this implementation interesting to think about for the long-term is how Amazon’s cloud is playing the role of the brain connecting many of these appliances. I’ve tried many similar connected products to the ones I mentioned but most of them are islands and do not talk to each other. The standardized platform for connected objects is a ripe battleground with competing standards, but the Wink platform as been a growing one and is quite easy to work with, as hardware vendors have told me.

Whether or not it’s Alexa and the Wink platform or Siri and Homekit or something else, the catalyst to drive these products into the mainstream will come from the cloud by way of intelligence and natural UI to make interfacing with our home easier.