Published on February 13th, 2018 | by Guest

The Future Of Artificial Intelligence & The Smart Home

You turn on the TV, what do you see? Commercials for Amazon Echo and Google Assistant. People love these AI tools. They allow you to literally talk to your home, giving you smart home automation technology where you can switch on lights, set the stove and do just about anything else. But where is it all going? Is this just a fad, or is there a growing market to be appreciated here? Let’s look at what some experts are saying and try to predict the future of this emerging market.

The Main Players

It’s funny in a way. The market for consumer AI really started with Apple’s Siri. People loved Siri because it could help you do just about anything with a voice command. However, Siri is confined to smartphones. Although Apple has promised to change that with their new HomePod, it’s not considered a big player in the smart home market because of price. In fact, Siri has been associated with smartphones and many experts don’t believe that it will make much of an impact outside of mobile technology.

Amazon and Google, on the other hand, have garnered a lot of support for their smart home tech. From Google Home Assistant to Amazon Echo (and the various Echo iterations), these titans are being recognized for their work in the field, and that can easily be seen in their sales numbers. Just the Echo alone has sold at least 11 million devices and counting.

Convenience or Novelty?

It’s easy to write this off as a novelty. In fact, it’s too easy. While everyone is excited about AI, few people are taking the home automation side seriously. Does anyone really need to talk to their house to make it do things that would only take a second to do?

Yes, turn your lights on and off only takes a second. And yes, changing the thermostat is as easy as pushing a button. But now, you can do all that while sitting down, in a different room or if your hands are full. You can take control of the house if your bedbound, sick or taking care of a child. It’s easy to write all of this off mere novelty until you consider all of the applications and just how vulnerable we can be.

There’s also something else to consider. Most novelty items are self-contained with maybe a few accessories here and there to bolster sales and continue the trend. Not so with home automation. AI tools must be able to communicate with your home to relay your voice commands into tangible changes.

There are lights, stereos, thermostats, locks and cameras all made to work with smart home tools. Each of these tools represent a small change, a way in which your life can become easier and more convenient. So, while it’s hardly in every home yet, there’s a growing trend towards that reality.

Replacing an Old Standby

What is the most outdated form of tech in your home, one that few people use? There are a lot of aspiring answers here, but the right one is your landline phone. Many homes still have them, but few are being purchased and even fewer are regularly used. Most of us are used to smartphones.

So, where does that leave home automation in this? Both Google and Amazon are racing to put their devices in their place. Imagine, completely hands-free calling through a speaker. To some it might seem great, to others scary or weird. But, in either way, this represents their ambition to get further into the home.

And that’s where Google and Amazon (and Apple, to an extent) are going. These are all small tasks and changes. However, each step is one further into the home. Each new command or tool is another way that you can control your home with a small piece of technology. The future of these devices is that they are trying to make themselves indispensable by covering all of their bases, by ensuring you can do every home task without getting up.

Conclusion

Right now, it’s easy to say that smart home tools are just a fad, that they will go away. However, this market is far too large and intricate to just deflate and disappear. These tools are working to make themselves more useful and invaluable to the common homeowner, and if they continue on this course it won’t be long before everyone has one.

Tags: AI, artificial intelligence, future, smart home