Home Smart Home

 

In the future, it is predicted that we will live in Smart houses. What is a Smart Home home? A Smart Home is a house that gives the home owners a comfortable lifestyle by providing security, energy efficiency and convenience at all times, regardless of whether anyone is home. Features range from automatically controlling your electricity and heat usage to having a fridge that knows your food patterns and orders groceries at the right time. The Internet-of-Things (IoT) will produce the connection between technology and your home. Every appliance being made has a wifi option. These machines will automatically realize it needs repair and will schedule it as well. As one would expect, this leap in future technology will bring competition among major companies. While several leading technology firms will be to sell us their Smart Home Tech Products, there will be too many loose ends. Currently we have hundreds of different apps and software to help us use our home “smartly,” but very few are integrated to form one platform that can control your house.

 

The technology giants such as Apple, Amazon, and Google may bring us that singular platform to manipulate our homes. With the release of iOS 10 by Apple on September 13, a major update included the Apple Homekit. This essentially is a single app that allows you to control all your Smart Home Technology uniformly. In other words, regardless of the company that created your Smart Tech, you will be able to control it from your iPhone using the app, provided it is compatible with Apple’s software. You can even use your iPad as a hub in your house to control your Smart Tech even when you’re on the go. Most of the security systems these days use similar technologies. These systems allow you to see your front door, control your thermostats and will notify you if there is a break-in.

 

In addition, Amazon has taken this a step further. Amazon released Amazon Echo and Echo Dot. These synchronize with your Smart Tech through the Alexa app on your phone. With this, you simply talk to the device and it does what you want. You may ask Alexa to turn the lights on, maybe even change the color if you have a multi-colored lightbulb. Alexa can play music for you, unlock the door, and even warm your car up for you on cold winter mornings. Sounds cool right! If you want to enjoy this technologically savvy lifestyle, be prepared to shell out the dollars, because not only are you paying for Amazon Echo, but you are also paying for the appliances to go with it. One can wish to pay this premium, then I must tell you that it’s worth it as it brings more convenience to your busy lifestyle.

 

Google decided to get on band wagon and came up with Google Home. While it is similar to the Amazon Echo, it does not have as much variety of tech products as the Echo. The Google Home costs about $130 and the Echo $180. For a novice user, Google Home is a decent choice. However, with the extra $50 spend for Echo you get a bigger assortment of commands to select from.

 

To sum up, these major brands are trying to own your home and be the central hub for controlling it. This race is similar to what we have seen in the world of entertainment (Microsoft versus play station; dvd versus blue ray etc). It would be good to see them collaborate more in the future. It does raise the question though, “Do we need this kind of technology in our day to day life?” It is not a NEED but a WANT, that will bring ease our daily life. Like all technology, it has its limitations as well. Since most of these products depend on a wireless connection one can never be without WiFi. However, it would be pretty cool to just order your stove to warm up food, or your fridge to fill a cup of water for you.