How Long Before We Get to Live in Genuinely Smart Homes?

What will the smart home of the future look like? Despite drawing the crowds at CES this year, it’s clear that the industry is still in its very early stages. Yes, the big boys are all involved – Amazon, Apple, Google et al. – but at the moment it’s a messy hotchpotch of competing standards, point products and exaggerated claims.

I may be biased of course, as my house is about as dumb as you can get – save for a couple of Sonos speakers dotted around the place.

But where I see things really coming together over the next few years is when we start to get more industry alliances, partnerships and/or M&A to consolidate competing platforms. At CES more than 10 smart home vendors announced integration with Amazon’s Echo/Alexa, for example, which begins to tie together a bunch of disparate tools for the smart home. Apple’s HomeKit, Google’s Nest ecosystem and Samsung SmartThings all have similar potential.

Strategy Analytics’ senior analyst, Joe Branca, claimed the biggest challenge facing the industry as a whole is finding a business model that works for vendors and their customers.

“The price point for solutions offered by traditional security companies helps to prevent a lot of consumers from buying into the smart home concept,” he told me when I interviewed him for a recent feature article.

“Our data shows, however, that there’s a strong interest in the benefits offered by security and smart home solutions – not to mention digital health and elderly care solutions – but at a lower price point than what’s available in the market at present.”

However, there may be other ways to subsidise the cost for consumers – for example, by getting insurance companies and marketers on board. The latter would be prepared to access user-generated data while the former benefit from more safe and secure houses, he claimed.

“Other big challenges have to do with customer service and installation,” Branca added.

“With multiple product and service offerings part of a single smart home ecosystem, consumers want to know who they will speak to when they need assistance. With regard to installation, DIY products have gotten a lot of praise, but we believe that to succeed with a mass market offering, installation by trained professionals is key.”

That’s a problem the Silicon Valley giants may need to partner up on to solve.

So what of the future?

Branca reckons more personalised, seamless, user-friendly experiences. I’d agree, but I think the usability and interoperability problems will still mean homes full of point products rather than smart ecosystems. As for the vendors, he argued that firms will end up transitioning to service-based business models.

“The real opportunity for smart home is in services that generate recurring revenue, and not simply the sale of hardware,” he concluded. “In the US, the security model is well-established. However, there is both an opportunity for security services that don’t fit the traditional mould – i.e., services that are lower cost and/or are a better match for renters or apartment owners – and services outside of security, including home maintenance and repair, for example.”

Long story short: I can’t wait for the smart home of the future, but I think I’ll be forced to for several years yet.