Introduction
Inspired by the podcast, The Smart Home Show, hosted by the experienced tech developers and journalists Adam Justice and Richard Gunther, I’ll explore the massive opportunities and trials one can expect to see in the future of smart home technology. This is the first article of the new series, “Discovering Next-Gen Technology”, designated to provide a unique paradigm and verifiable facts about the big picture of technology — keeping readers ahead of the curve on the avant-garde of technology.
Key Innovative Technologies of the Smart Home Boom
The term ‘smart home’ means the technology that efficiently enables connected automation of every-day home appliances. To further define the term, I’ll provide a non-comprehensive list of the innovative smart home product lines covered by the media as well as some specifics discussed on the “The Smart Home Show”:
Smart Faucets
Smart Showerheads
Smart Doorbells
Smart Shades (Office and Home)
Smart Lighting (Remote Lighting)
Smart Locks
Smart Security Systems
Smart Cameras
Smart Speakers (And Converters)
Smart Thermostats
Smart Home Monitoring
Smart Refrigerators
Smart Televisions and Monitors
Smart HVAC
Smart Cooking Appliances (e.g. Ovens, Grills, Cookers)
Smart Fitness (e.g. Equipment, Monitors, Scales, $$$)
Smart Cleaning (e.g. Robot Vacuums and Mops)
Smart Outdoor Appliances (e.g. Robot Lawnmowers and Sprinkler Controllers)
Overall, these product lines constitute the smart home “ecosystem”, with each category (and their respective products) containing a share of the total smart home market. The prospects of the current smart home ecosystem show significant growth for the near future and growing adoption among U.S. homeowners. For the majority of these products, the utility doesn’t stop at making homeowners more tech-savvy: the use of smart wares apply outside of the recreational “home”, and extend to workplaces, stores, hotels, restaurants, and anywhere else that the technology can make a significant difference. Examples such as smart shades and lighting can be seen ubiquitously in modernized offices, and smart locks and security systems are the norms for savvy building owners in Urbania and suburbia alike.
However, stand-alone products are not at the forefront of the smart home technology boom. The protagonists of this avant-garde wave of integrated home technology are the companies behind the most popular smart home assistants: Amazon, Google, Apple, and Samsung.
A Look Into Smart Home Assistants
The devices that most smart home technology owners purchase first are assistants: artificial intelligence that is used to communicate in voice-activated speakers or screen-activated hubs and provide a universal connection to their smart appliances or devices. Leading assistants include the Google Home speaker, Google Nest hub (with display), Amazon Echo speaker, Amazon Show hub (with display), Samsung SmartThings hub, and Apple HomePod hub. (TechRadar)
The most popular assistants are generally the cheaper and more available ones, and that means those round little "mini" speakers. It follows the most popular company in smart home assistants is Amazon, with 70% of U.S. smart speaker users choosing the Amazon Echo, 30% using Google speakers, and 18% using the rest (including Apple’s and Samsung’s products). (The Verge)
Benefits and Intricacies of Smart Home Assistants:
In the competitive market, companies that provide the most secure and useful platform will gain a loyal userbase and grow the fastest. Currently, Amazon and Google dominate the distribution side: their products are ubiquitous, cheap, and they even offer free, funny looking speakers with certain purchases or promotions. Apple’s distribution is not nearly as massive, but as with all of their products since the days of Steve Jobs, they put the greatest focus on the unique user experience and security. Unlike the other hubs, all of the data is held locally in your Apple HomeKit device, then anonymized before it is sent to the cloud. Samsung’s flagship smart home product specializes in interoperability: unlike some others, its SmartThings hub is interoperable with a wide variety of different smart devices and voice assistants including Alexa and Google.
For now, Amazon and Google are the most popular smart assistants in the U.S., but if they continue to ignore their product and security issues for making free round things then companies like Apple and Samsung can trend and take over some of their market shares.
Security Risks of Smart Home Assistants:
In this time where information technology is the universal money-maker and the focus of innovation, companies near and far use their customers’ data for product improvement and marketing. Smart home technologies require a standard of data that causes many people to simply avoid adopting more than¹ one device in fear of their privacy. Of course, much of this fear is founded: one trades some of their privacy for convenience when buying smart products. Big companies like Amazon and Google are not immune to security risks from software vulnerabilities and as many have noted, they actually collect and store the most video and audio data from smart tech products.
The right way to shop for any smart technology is to read privacy policies thoroughly and ensure that they are transparent enough for you to trust the company and the product. Additionally, show discretion between the security levels of smart home products; a smart camera in the kitchen is substantially more intrusive than a smart faucet. Third-party companies that work with Apple, Google, Amazon, or Samsung, such as Ring doorbell, have had and will continue to have public security scandals that merit an abundance of caution from smart shoppers. Privacy is paramount, so I’ll provide a basic look into which major company has the best security on their smart home platform.
According to the Smart Home Show and other publications, these are some prominent security risks of each major smart home platform :
Amazon and Google:
Video Surveillance Risks from Blink and Nest Security Cameras
Hacking Risks through Router, the Cloud, or Third-Party App
Zero-Day Vulnerability Risks
Google:
Location Surveillance Risks
Apple:
Hacking Risks through Router and Third-Party Apps (More Secure through Local Data Hosting)
Zero-Day Vulnerability Risks from Software Updates
In the Smart Home Show podcast, Samsung’s platform was not prominently mentioned because it has larger adoption in the global market than here in the US, but its products assuredly also have similar security risks to these top producers. Most prominently, as Richard from the podcast best noted, one can see from the start Apple’s focus on security gives them the best reputation in the smart home market. They do not have a branded line of security cameras or smart locks; their smart home platform, HomeKit, is made especially for third-party companies like Logitech or August to make trusted smart home brands for the end-user. Apple's model distributes some of the risks of security to the third-party, which adds another layer of security for the end-user. The way I look at it, they not only have local data storage that anonymizes consumer data, but they also have a distributed model of control that doesn’t have a single point of failure (such as operating system vulnerabilities), along with a self-made limitation on their access to end-user data.
For these reasons, the more data-sensitive consumers and even some developers should and do choose Apple as the most secure smart home platform. Hopefully, Amazon and Google will get on the boat of security features and create a bigger incentive for more consumers to trust their smart home line of products, giving more homeowners a variety of secure products that put their privacy first before collecting data.
The Practical Issue of Smart Home Assistants:
The other issue that deducts points from the adoption of smart home technology is a lack of broad interoperability. Each company’s assistant devices connect to their platform of products and a few others, but not all others. That means a Google Nest Home is not going to connect to your (Amazon) Blink home doorbell and security system. Perhaps, this lack of interoperability creates an incomplete consumer experience and a more complex and limited decision process when choosing which assistant and products to buy.
For example, a user of an Apple smartphone will have to forego their native Apple HomeKit smart home products for another brand if they want native support for their Samsung’s SmartThing hub. Other times, one may be limited in price and design choice because each smart assistant has a complex web of compatibility for different products in the aforementioned product list. In the future, the biggest question for these assistants is if they can help the smart home ecosystem attain the desired level of ease that attracts adoption from the majority of consumers.
Technologies That Make Smart Home Assistants Frictionless:
Power-saving Wi-fi Alternatives:
Energy usage is a big concern for smart home users; in most cases, the cost of the energy required for operation can bring a barrier to long-term usage of the products. Smart shoppers should beware the costs and buy products that have cost-reducing or energy-saving features. Wi-fi can have an exorbitant cost, and the protocols Zigbee and Z-Wave are the smart home industry's answer to make their technology more practical.
Zigbee is an industry-standard technology that can be used instead of wi-fi to connect smart devices. For a definition with more specifics, the site Techopedia.com defines Zigbee as follows:
“ZigBee is an open global standard for wireless technology designed to use low-power digital radio signals for personal area networks. ZigBee operates on the IEEE 802.15.4 specification and is used to create networks that require a low data transfer rate, energy efficiency and secure networking. It is employed in a number of applications such as building automation systems, heating and cooling control and in medical devices.
ZigBee is designed to be simpler and less expensive than other personal are network technologies such as Bluetooth.” (Techopedia)
As mentioned in the definition, there is a benefit of energy efficiency and security of data transferred on the protocol. One does not need to buy a hub to start using Zigbee tech— each Zigbee-enabled product acts as a repeater over a small distance to create a mesh network and connect the smart home ecosystem. However, one should buy a Zigbee enabled hub if they want to connect many devices at once. Zigbee products and hubs also act on the same frequency as Wi-fi and Bluetooth. (The Ambient)
Z-Wave is another similar and widely-used Wifi-alternative for smart home devices.
According to Techopedia.com:
“Z-Wave is a wireless network designed by Zensys Inc. to provide communication between devices in a home control network. Z-Wave may be used to control lights, heating, and air conditioning, and appliances and home security, among other functions.
Z-Wave makes it possible to unify home electronics into a single network without having to run cables or reprogram devices. Most home electronics can operate on Z-Wave with the addition of a Z-Wave accessory module.” (Techopedia)
There is a major difference that may be important: all Z-Wave enabled products require a Z-wave enabled hub. Unlike Zigbee, Z-Wave is a commercial product; it was designed by Zensys Inc. and has changed owners from Sigma Designs to Silicon Labs. Additionally, it is supported by a group called the Z-Wave Alliance and runs on its own dedicated frequency. (The Verge¹) These central sources of support are beneficial for ensuring compatibility and future optimization of the technology, as their site mentions. However, centralized control and the fact that Z-Wave is more a product² than an open-source technology means that consumers have higher prices and big developers can’t always integrate as easily as they can with Zigbee.
So, there are tradeoffs that come with each protocol; but practically they act as complements because Z-Wave has a better long-range protocol between a few devices, while Zigbee better operates with small distances between many devices. The cost of a Z-Wave hub generally is not a big issue, so the best metric to choose a protocol, therefore, is to first estimate how many products that they want to have in their smart home ecosystem.
Smart Home Interoperability & Combination Platforms:
The smart technologies of the biggest producers are best suited for general use, but for people who want further options based on their combination of attributes, platforms like IFTTT best address that issue.
IFTTT (If This Then That) is a web-based service and mobile application that combines actions like “Perform an action with this app when another app performs an action”. The best part is that it also works with smart home products, which lays the groundwork for a whole new innovation of how we use appliances by allowing automation of conditions using our commands as the building blocks.
One useful example from their site is “When Nest Protect detects a smoke alarm emergency, turn on a [smart] light”. (IFTTT) Google Assistant's AI already has features that are similar, but it does not quite have the level of intricacy needed to perform such high-level combinations of commands. If this technology is adopted and nativized by the biggest general smart home brands, then the expectations that the early futurists once had will become our reality— forget robots. If the IFTTT application is not compatible or doesn’t suit your needs, the best alternative combination platforms include Zapier and Microsoft Flow.
With the most practical issue plaguing smart home assistants and devices being interoperability, platforms like Homebridge “bridge” the gap.
In the case of Homebridge, it enables Apple HomeKit users to integrate with smart home devices that don’t work natively on the platform using their plugins. According to the Homebridge site, this interoperability extension includes highly-popular devices like “Ring, Nest & Nest Cameras, TP-Link Kasa Smart Home, Hue / deCONZ (Zigbee), and Logitech Harmony”. (HomeBridge)
Recent Developments of Smart Home Assistants:
From an article entitled “7 Key Predictions for the Future Of Voice Assistants and AI” written by a software company, ClearBridgeMobile, one can see the future of smart assistants through the current problems that require optimization. The article lists streamlined conversations, compatibility and integration, following search behaviors, individualized experiences, voice push notifications, touch interactions, and a focus on security as the main points of improvement for voice assistants along with their AI.
What else could bring up user adoption but fixing all of the most pertinent issues with the weakest link? These factors have presently limited the user experience, and when these improvements are enacted, that will be the boost that the smart tech industry needs to go from linear to exponential.
If you are a property owner who is interested in the futuristic benefits of smart home technology, or someone who is looking for the next "big thing" to make their smart home ecosystem more functional, I believe that you will see these factors play a big role in the voice-activated smart products that you find in the future.
Smart Homes En Général
Overall, the smart home industry is still in its late nascence, with only² 18% of homeowners in the U.S. owning more than one smart home technology despite nearly 70% owning one (as of 2019); however, it is definitely worth it to become an early adopter. The bulk of the most worthwhile and marketable smart home technology is already here.
The security and practical issues have been addressed and merit an abundance of caution, however, a smart shopper can navigate these risks and achieve great benefits from this futuristic technology that epitomizes convenience. I hope this article informs readers in order to be able to become one of them.
Citations (with reference count):
The Smart Home Show https://www.smarthome.fm/
The Verge: Home Speakers https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/10/21131988/amazon-alexa-echo-google-apple-smart-home-speaker
RobotPoweredHome https://robotpoweredhome.com/samsung-smartthings-apple-homekit/
Techopedia: Zigbee https://www.techopedia.com/definition/4390/zigbee
Techopedia: Z-Wave https://www.techopedia.com/definition/27782/z-wave