Providers

Smart Home Experts   Smart home integration began several decades ago within the audio/video industry—with technologies that include multi-room music, home theater, and automation systems.  Other technologies—like security & surveillance, and lighting & shade control—have, over the years, become an integral part of what they do.   

Audio/Video Specialists and Smart Home Integrators continue to provide most of the design, sales, and installation work that is performed within the smart home industry.   They now offer a wide range of products and services.  See the Smart Home Expert Finder (coming soon) to locate a specialist near you.

Electronic Service Providers  

A number of national cable TV, telephone, internet, and security companies now lease basic home technology services to consumers.  They typically offer promotional specials in which a limited range of equipment is bundled together.  Low initial prices are achieved by shifting most of the costs into recurring monthly fees, under multi-year leasing contracts.

These large service corporations typically aren’t able to assess or provide the wide range of products and services required to meet the home and lifestyle needs of most homeowners, or to tailor their systems to address special needs—essential tasks that define a true smart home.  They also typically lack expertise in the design and installation of home theaters, multi-room music systems, or other core smart home technologies.  

Big Box Stores & Internet Sellers   

In recent years, many brick and mortar electronics chains have closed their doors, unable to compete with internet pricing.  Of those that remain, many now offer some level of installation service for the products they sell.  

But successful smart home solutions involve much more than just a retail transaction plus delivery and set-up.  Few brick and mortar chains provide the design and integration services—and installation skills—that a successful smart home requires.  

And they provide even less in the way of consulting services: you must know what you want and how to install and configure it yourself.  They just send the package. 

A new category of products has emerged recently to much fanfare.  Dubbed the Internet of Things (IoT), it allows do-it-your-selfers (DIYers) to install one or a few widgets in their home (with the corresponding apps on their smartphone) to provide low-cost home automation features.  

Some of these devices are stand-alone products, while others are available as mini-platforms.  These IoT technologies focus mostly on basic lighting control, a heating/AC thermostat, a simple alarm system, and/or limited surveillance cameras—all internet-enabled so they can be monitored and controlled on a smart phone.

Today, the most widely-recognized IoT product is a learning thermostat, with an optional CO (carbon monoxide) detector and a table-top security camera built into the  mix.  Another tech manufacturer now offers a mini-platform with the ability to integrate simple products developed by independent partners.  

And a major manufacturer of home appliances and entertainment devices recently announced plans to internet-enable all of their products within a few years.  Numerous start-ups have also entered the marketplace, developing stand-alone DIY automation widgets. 

This flurry of digital innovation and excitement has occurred rapidly—in just a few years.  In comparison, most of the dedicated smart home products and systems available through Smart Home Experts (see above) have evolved and been perfected over a period of several decades.

Given the complexity of human behavior and taste, are these new IoT “systems” ready for prime time, after such a brief and hurried cycle of development?  Many apparently are not.

Adoption rates for products in this new category have recently fallen far short of industry expectations, calling into question the viability of this approach.  Consumers report the following problems:

Hacking  

Many of the devices in this IoT category are easily hacked via the internet, due to inadequate security code protocols and other needed protections.  These flaws offer the hacker an easy “back door” into everything connected to the owner’s home network—often including security systems and financial information.

Imagine a burglar gaining access to the family’s daily schedule—which their thermostat has so conveniently learned and recorded, in order to fine-tune the home’s temperature hour by hour!  It really reduces their risk!  See Protect Your Network from Hackers (coming soon).

Frustration  

Although IoT widgets and apps are widely promoted as simple DIY projects, many purchasers find them frustrating to install, difficult to configure, and hard to use.  As a result, they turn to professionals to install the devices, or simply return them in favor of more established solutions (see above).  See The Analog Brain in a Digital World.

Limited Integration  

As smart home possibilities continue to expand, more and more consumers have begun to realize that a handful of individual cookie-cutter automation widgets and apps simply won’t meet their smart home needs.

Though appealing in its promise of simple installation and low price, the one-size-fits-all IoT approach fails to deliver on the two key benefits of a genuine smart home:

• the ability to scale and custom-tailor each technology to the specific physical characteristics of the home and lifestyle needs and preferences of the household members; and
• the ability to integrate across an unlimited range of technologies, in order to solve unusual or even unique home-related problems—and to control these solutions simply.

See  MY NEEDS; My Smart Home Plan [coming soon], Tailor the Technology to Your Lifestyle,  Integrating Smart Home Devices.