The smart home is dumb… for now
The smart home movement, or lack there-of, has been a source of personal frustration. Luckily a quick internet search gives me mild comfort in knowing that I am not alone. Just read Adam Clarke Estes’ experience. Estes is a blogger for Gizmodo and shared his disappointment after whole-heartedly buying into the concept of the smart home coupled with the epic failure that the components delivered. Fair-warning his frustration leads him to profanity [http://ow.ly/2X0k30dOCnQ]. My fellow smart home enthusiasts and I have bought into the idea that home automation fueled by a combination of AI chat bots and a plethora of autonomous bots of various sizes and job functions can – nay will – make our lives at home easier and more enjoyable. We’re just waiting for someone to deliver on this promise. Until then the “smart home” is dumb. Let’s discuss what a vision for the smart home could be, why the solutions in the marketplace today can’t deliver, and a possible solution.
What is a smart home? The idea of the smart home is that our lives will be more enjoyable by replacing manual labor with automated technology to make everyday activities from chores to entertainment more enjoyable. This definition has evolved overtime to the present-day expectation that devices will not only meet our needs but anticipate them. The magazine IoT Evolution provides a brief, but detailed, history of the smart home[http://ow.ly/nBL530dOCrw]. In 1966 Jim Sutherland, an engineer for Westinghouse, created the ECHO IV for personal use for him and his family. This was the first “smart home” device and people around the world took notice [http://ow.ly/HNaQ30dOCu9]. Since then our imaginations have run wild.
McKinsey recently published an article that provides some forward-looking theories on what the smart home of the future could look like [http://ow.ly/eAMS30dOCxt]. Their vision is thought-provoking as it contemplates a hierarchy of home bots: the master bot acting as a general a manger to distribute tasks; service bots that handled complex tasks; and niche bots that perform a single task, such as vacuuming. Even more interesting is the thought that as humans concede more duties to bots we will remove ourselves further from certain decision-making aspects, such as which detergent to buy. Suppliers of common household goods will now have to market to bots as they scour internet reviews and other available sources for which goods to restock the shelves. But before we re-write all the marketing books and business school curriculum let’s get to a point where these smart home devices will actually work.
The biggest source of frustration I have with the smart home movement is the fragmented solutions in the marketplace today. Every smart home needs a central nervous system, aka hub, that connects all of these devices. The problem is that every company out there is creating a closed system. Many companies are focused on creating both hubs and devices in a completely closed system that will not integrate with 3rd party devices. Other companies like Apple and Google are building platforms and certifying specific gadgets, but these gadgets don’t work on multiple platforms leaving consumers confused as to what gadget will work on which platform. As Stacey Higginbotham writes in Fortune magazine, we need a common protocol that ensures when a consumer brings in any new device it will simply work [http://ow.ly/icD130dOCBM]. Higginbotham goes on to identify four more ways that current smart home gadgets and platforms fail us; everything from we don’t have enough home sensors, too small of a data set for AI to learn about us in the home, additional complexities of multiple users in a family-life setting versus living alone, and the need for one unified control system. Despite all this there is hope.
Nick Colsey, VP Business Development for Sony Electronics, shared with our Stanford class Sony’s approach to the smart home concept. Colsey has been with Sony for 25 years and has the distinguished honor of being apart of the team that introduce the world’s first smart TV. I personally own two Sony BRAVIA TV’s and thoroughly enjoy the integration with video streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. As a consumer, I was encouraged to hear that his team’s guiding principal has been on end-user experience. When they introduced the Smart TV, Colsey and team did not want to just put an internet browser on a larger screen, they wanted a unique experience that leveraged internet connection to enhance TV viewing. Sony succeeded in a big way. According to Colsey the market penetration for Smart TV’s has jumped for non-existent in 2007 to almost 70% in 2017. Today, Sony TV is based on the Android OS which provides many benefits: if Sony were to create their own OS they would have to manage it, provide patches, etc.; Sony can leverage Google’s engineers to make Apps for the Android OS, rather than writing their own Apps; and Google is continuing to enrich the user experience on the Android OS, for instance with integrations like Google Search.
Even more encouraging is that Sony has crossed the aisle and is working with Amazon, so that both Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Home assistant can control the TV. Repeat: Sony has created the only TV that will work with both Alexa and Google Home. Hooray! The down side, in my opinion, is that Sony has not been rewarded for their hard work. Colsey mentioned that the drawback to running the Android OS is that Google owns all the data to how the consumer is using the TV. Google should share this information with Sony so that real-time consumer feedback can be looped into project design and feature enhancements for the next release of Sony TV’s.
If more companies would adopt Sony’s approach to working with platform providers then consumers will spend less time worrying about whether or not this new gadget will integrate with the smart home investments already made and more time enjoying the smart home life. Because after all, this is about saving me from having to walk 10 feet to turn off the light switch for movie night.
5 comments on “The smart home is dumb… for now”
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Thank you for presenting some thought provoking arguments.
I feel that the Smart Home movement is all around us and gaining popularity, in fact it has become mainstream as evidence by the sale of Smart Home products in stores like Amazon, Monoprice, Costco, Best Buy, Home Depot, Fry’s Electronics and many more. Consumer retail stores cannot afford to stock early adopter products without a reasonable sales volume.
(https://www.costco.com/smart-home-automation.html, http://www.bestbuy.com/site/home/home-security-safety/pcmcat254000050002.c?id=pcmcat254000050002, http://www.frys.com/category/Outpost/Electronic+Components/Home+Automation+Controllers)
In terms of the fragmentation of the industry, I believe it is a natural phenomenon in the early stages of adoption following the innovation. It is unrealistic to expect that the entire world will invent the same technology or solution. Simply put, convergence takes its time. We all know of the famous VHS versus Betamax battle, as well as the competition of video encoding formats between Windows Media Player, Real Player and MPEG formats. A decade ago, electric vehicles and hydrogen-powered vehicles were contending for the same market, however electric vehicles seem to have already won that space.
At the moment, Smart Home technology is not as ubiquitous as you would like because of the additional investment it requires for existing homeowners who have already made investments in their “dumb” appliances. However, new home construction is the perfect candidate for higher adoption of Smart Home technologies, and that is already a clear trend. In fact buyers are willing to pay more for smart homes.
(http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/ct-re-0828-kenneth-harney-column-20160825-column.html)
Until the hierarchy of home bots becomes a reality, I’m happy to benefit from the value and convenience of (1) a master switch near the main entrance that switches off lights in the entire house when I’m leaving and (2) a video doorbell that can notify me of the arrival of the cleaning services personnel and a door lock that I can operate with my iPhone to allow them inside.
Thank you for your article.
I came upon an article by Forbes that compares the Google smart home and Alexa from Amazon. IT was astonishing to find out that neither of them did a good job as you have already said. A reporter from Forbes magazine did a comparison on 45 different aspects and neither could accomplish them in a formidable way. Here is what he concluded on “Amazon needs to figure how to better integrate skills into Alexa, because at present, you have to remember how to ask a question – as well as including the name of the skill – to get the answer you want. Given how many skills are available, this is a lot to commit to memory. Home, on the other hand, tries to bend to your requests rather than the other way around. But with such low scores – in this test and the last – neither device has much to brag about here.” (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2017/04/28/google-home-vs-amazons-alexa-2-45-complex-questions-1-clear-winner/2/#4494561450df).
I think Ushana brings up an interesting point about smart homes being preferred when building new housing. I wonder if this should be the main focus for these “smart home” companies instead of convincing homeowners to retrofit their existing housing.
In doing research for our final project I came across an article where the author describes in humorous detail what happened to Alexa when it lost the connection. I can admit that I am intrigued by the smart home, but not totally ready to jump in. The ice maker on my refrigerator is going out on me, so I’m pricing out new ones. I’m amazed that I can buy one that will not only tell me that I’m out of milk, but it would order it for me. I don’t know if I’m ready for that, or the price tag that comes with it. What if I want another dish of ice cream and it goes into HAL mode, “I’m sorry, Rob. I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.” Where I’m going with this is that I’m not sure we need every aspect of our lives connected. I can get a text from my wife on my phone, which my car will intercept and voice to me over the speakers “Honey, pick up some milk and toilet paper on your way home” while my boss is in the front seat. – True story.
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Hi Will,
A great post ! Really shows the level of research you went through while writing this. I do believe that no company is giving the consumers an end to end solution to a smart home. You touched on the idea of compatibility; which is a big issue with all the different kinds of technology we have right now. No one wants to buy a different device for everything. Also, you mentioned the lack of data when training these AI bots, which is always a bummer in Machine learning. Treading in new areas, a ML developer is facing this issue now more than ever. In the case of a smart home, the bot needs a lot of information. From the floor plan of a house (if it’s a moving bot), to the habits of its inhabitants and their schedule, and many more things which I can’t even fathom right now. Interconnectivity is also important. If the bot can analyze your mobile data, your conversations in the house, it can perform even better. Although it may sound invasion to some, but this is what is required if these bots are to be any smarter.
PS: My section is MS&E 238A.