Key Takeaways:
- Experts at a Kohler Living summit revealed coming trends in smart-home technology;
- Designers and integrators can take a few steps to give clients more control over their homes;
- Consistent and reliable performance is crucial to making home technology more accessible and easier to use.
By Dianne M. Pogoda
When it comes to smart-home technology, many consumers have mastered the basics — operating the video doorbell or climate control via app, for example — but are unsure of how to take their homes to the next level.
A session at the recent Kohler Living virtual summit featured a lineup of experts who aimed to demystify the evolution of smart living technology and what’s on the horizon. One of the important takeaways was that designers, builders and remodelers will need to think about the whole home working in concert, as opposed to solitary rooms, systems, appliances or devices.
Carrie Seymour, communications director of consumer insight for Kohler, moderated the Q&A and focused on ways designers can help consumers gain better control of the tech in their homes, and how to make it easier to use.
Among her guests was Mohammed Abdelgany, product manager lead for Google Nest. Seymour began by asking how Google approaches the development of tech in the home.
“Similar to how Google has helped organize the web, we are now focused on organizing the home,” Abdelgany said. “That means making smart homes more accessible and useful, and this manifests in four ways.”
The first addresses the big picture: to be whole-home-focused, giving users more control over all the systems, appliances and devices in their homes, from one central hub. For instance, he said Google has added smart controls to the notification screen on Android devices.
The second way is focusing on automation and intelligence to make homes more helpful, and thus enabling partners to create value. “For example, we recently launched ‘home and away’ settings so you can automate your lights, your thermostat and other devices based on whether or not you’re home,” he explained.
The third is reliability and creating seamless experiences that just function properly. “At the end of the day, users just want all their products to work,” Abdelgany stated. It might seem obvious, but “we get the most user engagement when we have reliable functionality.”
Finally, the fourth is investing in key technologies to standardize the smart-home. Many software companies are working on such protocols to unify devices. He said one of Google’s main focuses today is on Matter, which is a new IOT (Internet of Things) standard that will allow all of a user’s devices to be set up and controlled in a more consistent way, across different apps and assistants.
“When each app or light or thermostat has a different way or place for users to interact with it, it can become hard to keep track, and that bifurcation of experiences can become quite frustrating,” he explained. “So, we need to be forward-looking when we think about how to represent a device or smart home trait, and how a user can engage with that device in a consistent way — whether it’s voice, touch or other automations. So, the philosophy is to build consistently.”
The Matter unifying platform will enable smart-home devices to talk to each other, in the same language. A number of major smart-home platforms have committed to supporting Matter and to working together, including Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, and Samsung SmartThings. This means users will be able to use their apps, smart speakers, displays and voice assistants from various brands to manage connected devices.
In the next few years, he added, we’ll see the introduction of more intelligent automation as well. He pointed to a blend of technology and well-being.
“Technology can help take on some well-being issues directly,” Abdelgany continued. “An example is Google’s new Nest hub smart display, which can help users sleep better. It uses radar sensors to try to understand sleep patterns, and can make recommendations on how to get better sleep. It can help you wake up more naturally in the morning by brightening the display to simulate a sunrise.”
When devices are able to communicate with each other, one function can trigger another, even among systems from different brands. For instance, opening the garage door remotely as the homeowner pulls into the driveway can deactivate the alarm system, turn on the lights, or adjust the home thermostat to a desired setting. Or, selecting a recipe on a home assistant can automatically preheat the connected oven and suggest timing for the meal.
Abdelgany cited two other technologies coming to market that will enhance the smart-home experience, Thread and Ultra-Wide Band (UWB). Thread is a low-power, responsive, stable wireless mesh network technology that’s built for the smart home. It connects to power and battery-operated devices and it’s faster and perhaps more reliable than just Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, it has no single point of failure, and has the ability to self-heal at times, he explained. UWB gives device makers ultra-precise indoor positioning. “Imagine being able to unlock the door as you approach, or accurately light up the hallway as you walk around the house,” he said. “UWB opens the door to a richer set of intelligent automations for users in the future.”
With the exponential pace of smart-tech evolution, obsolescence can be an issue. Seymour asked how designers and builders can help their clients future-proof a smart home. Abdelgany noted that this is an industry-wide challenge, “as we continue to try to standardize and get to a place of stability. I would focus heavily on the quality of the experience and the reliability of the devices you’re considering. Smart-home devices are replacing really reliable things — like light switches — so you should focus on devices with a proven reputation for consistency and not breaking apart often. That consistent reliability will carry these devices forward for years.”
