Is Smart Home about to go viral?

The time is right, and the market is ready for custom smart homes to go mass market.

The Smart Homes industry has been around for 30+ years now. It’s quite funny to go back and watch videos from some of the original providers, their limited capabilities and the clunky interfaces.

You wouldn’t believe it, but Smart Homes is a mature market, which has a few major players with global reach. They have proprietary solutions and components; licenced installer networks and are only accessible to the top end of the market. Nick recently spoke to someone who is spending $250,000 on a Control4 solution.

At the other end of the spectrum, is the proliferation of smart products. These are easily accessible to the broader population; but a house full of smart product is not a smart house…. Just as a team of champions is not a champion team (go Blues!). It still takes experience and skill to make a smart home with a set of smart products.

So why is smart home about to go viral? (pardon the over-used cliche!)

There are three main reasons why the industry is poised for significant change… consumer expectations, solutions at an attainable price, and the building industry is nearly ready to incorporate ‘smart home’ as an additional trade in their projects.

History tells us that premium products eventually trickle down to the mass market. Premium products can either be ‘consumer premium’ or ‘commercial’ products. I’m not saying that we’ll all be driving around in Bentleys any time soon, but in the 80’s (showing my age), premium cars had electric windows, air con, air bags, ABS etc; and over time every one of these innovations has trickled down to the lower end of the market. This happens for two reasons – consumers want these features, and they become more affordable.

Smart home capability is now at the inflection point, where a custom designed and built smart home can be achieved, at a mass market price point. In addition, through experimentation with cheap consumer devices, people are now demanding more smart home capability and more premium integrated solutions.

The building industry, and more specifically the people that make up the industry, are also technology consumers; but the industry is not full of IT boffins. This, historically, has produced a drag on enthusiasm to push and promote smart home capability as part of building projects. This has been due to either a through lack of awareness of what is possible or a fear of added complexity and risk to a builder’s project. Again, consumer demand is driving a change, but also (since building industry people themselves are consumers) the awareness is lifting gradually, project by project as customers are asking for more and industry professionals are experimenting with products and suppliers.

Electricians are a great example. Nine years ago, when I started my smart home journey, the electricians had never seen a puck (a small smart device installed within an electrical circuit). Now, it’s much more common for electricians to know of them and have worked with multiple varieties over the last few years.

How does the smart home consultant work within the project?

I'm predicting that smart home consultants will become part every building project. They'll be involved from the start of the project through to the final customer handover.

• At design - working with architects and lighting designers on products, usage of the spaces and experience as people interact with their spaces. Its a critical time to also learn about the client's requirements.

• During build - Mostly working in with the electrician on installation of smart components and wiring

• At handover - Spending time on-site to perform final configuration and testing; before handover to the client.

I’m excited to be on the journey and involved in the industry at such a pivotal time. In 5 years, when every residential building project includes a smart home consultant, we’ll look back on 2024 and say – that’s when it all changed.