WINNING COMBINATION FOR THE FUTURE OF HOME AUTOMATION
The range of smart devices for your home are on the rise!
Switches, lighting, security, appliances controlled through some form of centralized home automation software, accessed by a PC, table or mobile phone.
If you have every stumbled across one of the many home automation products on offer through our retail outlets, you may like many have found yourself tempted by the promise of what they have to offer, but unsure about the value to your everyday life.
After all, getting a few devices to turn on or off using a mobile phone may be fun, it might make table talk at dinner with friends, but in the end isn't it still easier to just walk over and use the switch, right?
I'm a pragmatic person and to be honest I have watched the emergence of this industry for a long time. First as I suppressed the child within, with adult logic that questioned the merits. More recently as a business man observing a new industry emerged. The facts are a large proportion of the people living on this planet have mobile phones and there is only so much texting, game playing, communicating and social networking one can do on a phone. The age of mobile applications is already here, the only genuine frontier is apps that have deeper integration into our lives. Be that our personal, family or professional lives, lifestyle automation applications hold a promise of modernizing the way we live, work and play improving our effectiveness, enjoyment of of environment, personal gratification and even our health.
Combining home security, home automation, home network using one of the new breed of "smart NAS" devices with personal cloud, personal productivity gadgets, voice recognition (Google Home, Tasker, and Amazon echo) really is a great story. Mark my words, it's a story that I believe the developed world with latch onto with a ferocious appetite for newer / better innovations over the next 10 years.
There, OK, I admit it. Somehow in the passage of time I have become an automation geek, or some variant of that breed. If you know of an antidote please leave it in your comments below.
Anyway back on topic, the range of products already available are about to be supplanted as competition heats up in this space. Apple's announcing their entry into the space will I am certain leave a few of the manufacturers guessing where they intend to position themselves.
A Samsung company Smart Things has already gained a name for itself for devices connected through it's smart home controller, Phillips is carving a place for themselves with specific devices (lighting, controllers). Belkin has come in with a range of DIY products promoted through retailers such as Bunnings in Australia. Unfortunately giving these products shelf space alone does not inspire the shopper's imagination as to what they might accomplish with these devices.
Additionally there are just so many products, technologies, protocols, standards involved, that the average person would not know where to start.
What if I start with Belkin and then decide I want to use home automation software that Belkin does not work with?
If I pick Phillips Hue lighting and try to replace lights in my house the cost would be significant
Do I need to get the same brands for everything so it works together?
Will I be able to link them, will I need to decommission devices and buy another more expensive brand?
If you look at history, we have been faced with this same dilemma many times, and in the case of technology the emergence of re-seller's that deal directly with the end customer has been the outcome and it will be the same here. Whilst the larger retailers will use their buying power to offer the components at lower prices, some form of value added re-seller is needed to explain the technology choices to people in terms they will understand.
Today we see a new raft on on-line firms selling everything from PC's to pens carrying home automation products, and the competition between these channels and national retailers is great for the consumers as it drive the costs down and the quality up. But in this world where manufacturers and distributors are chasing higher quality and functionality on ever decreasing margins, the value added re-seller is the buyers best friend.
Home automation systems integration company's such as smikbox and Pelecrin are there to demystify the choices, and give people practical guidance as to which path to take and then what to use / how to do what your envisaging. You can see by the amount of practical advise on offer that behind the scenes these system integration firms are genuinely testing and using the technologies they carry. Yes you may pay a small margin on top of the retail price from China, but do you really have the time or knowledge to manage this? You will also find these companies sometimes offer a set up fee proportional to the value of what your buying, but if the fee's are small in comparison to the cost of your own time, most people will opt in for convenience and to reduce risk.
I remember the words of John Ruskin (1819-1900) who once said
"It's unwise to pay too much, but it's also unwise to pay too little. When you pay too much you only loose money. When you pay too little you get caught by your own cleverness and loose much more."
and
"the common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done".
So the stage is set, manufacturers vying for positions in the market, importers and distributes to bring product, service and warranty capabilities into the country at a reasonable price, and system integration firms emerging that specialize in consumer niches.
This will be the winning combination that ushers home and lifestyle automation into our worlds.
Please share your thoughts, love to hear from you if you agree / disagree or have something to add.
Thanks for stopping by.
