Smart home hubs are dying, DIY will become increasingly niche and smart companies are prepping for this. For example, Honeywell’s smart home spin out Resideo went public this week with an eye to removing complexity from smart homes. Meanwhile, Calix unveiled a gateway device and a service to make it easier for ISPs to deliver the smart home. In other failed IoT efforts, Kevin and I talk about the fall of beacons and point out what might take its place. Google’s new deal with iRobot comes up, and then we segue into Microsoft’s plans for a smart office followed by some of the more recent security breaches. We end with a low-power AI chip and by answering a listener’s question about a Wi-Fi motion sensor to work with his LIFX bulbs.
Our guest this week has written a new book on the smart home. We welcome Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, who is an industrial designer and author of Smarter Homes: How Technology Will Change Your Home Life. We talk about more than a century of smarter homes, how the term has changed and why today’s efforts are not succeeding. She also asks us to question our current design methodologies for digital assistants and explains what might replace them. It’s a fun show.
Great segment with Alexandra. I agree with her that each home is unique to the needs of the people living in it so selling entire systems isn’t going to appeal to most. I’m a big proponent of smart home and using it as a differentiating factor when selling a home. Side note – Coldwell Banker as a brand has made great strides in bringing this into the real estate space. After speaking at a real estate conference last month (about smart home & RE), an agent came up to me and she bought a home with connected devices herself. She hasn’t used the devices because she doesn’t know how. While it’s a great marketing tool for selling a home, there should be a handoff from seller to buyer in what to do especially with things like smart lock where the new homeowners won’t have access to it unless the previous owner does a factory reset.
While there are some standard items that most people will get, it’s a matter of preference for a lot of people. There are connected devices they may be willing to sacrifice privacy for and others they want nothing to do with. As we start seeing more and more of these homes on the market (resale), you really need to think through what to leave behind.
If you ask my opinion, using a Wi-Fi motion sensor with a LIFX bulb for a laundry room is overkill. A simple motion detection wall switch would accomplish the same function at a fraction of the cost. I don’t see a reason where you would need to remotely turn on or off a laundry room light whether by voice or cellphone, so that capability with a LIFX bulb would be pointless. Before deciding to use IOT devices, it should be accessed just what functionality is actually necessary.