Surely you've heard the term "Internet of Things" this year, and
perhaps you're even intrigued by the concept. Smart devices ranging from
thermostats to locks to light bulbs captured our attention this year.
The reason in part is because adding some connected smarts to these
household basics offers up benefits that are easy for consumers to
understand. Whether you want to monitor the comings and goings in your
home, save energy, or simply glide through a fully-automated world of
connected devices, the appeal is clear.
Extend that idea to large appliances and the benefits become less
apparent. What's so "smart" about an Internet-connected washing machine
if you still have to manually deal with the clothes? That murkiness
didn't stop LG and Samsung from launching complete lines of connected
smart appliances at
CES 2013.
Whirlpool, GE, Dacor, and others have also joined in, either with
one-off smart appliances or complete lines of connected products.
None of those vendors will tell you that smart appliances make up a
significant portion of their sales. Most will even admit that they're
still trying to understand what consumers really want from a connected
refrigerator. Despite that uncertainty, at least some of these
manufacturers, and likely others, will launch large smart appliances at
this year's CES. We'll be paying special attention to whether they make
the benefits more attractive to consumers.
Here's what else we expect from smart home products at this year's show:
Home automation
Staples has a DIY home automation kit. So does Lowe's, whose Iris system is pictured above. We've seen systems from small, previously unknown vendors, like SmartThings.
We've also seen companies like Dropcam, who sells a webcam, suggest
they might be getting into the home automation game. And what's Google
up to with its rumored experimental smart thermostat service?
The separate components in this post are worth tracking individually,
but the real money in the smart home, much like with computers, will
flow to whoever can establish the first popular eco-system. This will be
a popular technology topic for the next few years, and we will see
plenty of companies, both expected and otherwise, use CES to jockey for
position.
DIY home security
We reviewed a half-dozen or so
user-installable, Internet-connected security systems this year. You'll
find some nice diversity among these products, but whether it's an
all-in-one device like Piper, or a hub-and-sensor array like SimpliSafe,
the one thing they have in common is that they represent a small but
potentially disruptive threat to entrenched dealer-based companies like
ADT, Frontpoint, Alarm.com and others. Home security vendors new and old
will be exhibiting at CES this year. It will be interesting to see how
the traditional players respond, and how this segment of the smart home
continues to develop.
Smart lighting
Philips established an early lead in 2012 with its Hue smart LED light bulbs. A new competitor with wide-distribution emerged in November by way of the Home Depot-aligned Connected by TCP smart LED kit. The upcoming US ban
on traditional 60- and 40-watt incandescent bulbs has already spurred
interest in LED-based alternatives. In the smart LED market in
particular, there remains plenty of room for innovation and price
competition. CES provides the perfect forum for someone to make news in
this category.
Smart locks
Most frustrating review at CNET Appliances this year was the Kwikset Kevo Bluetooth Deadbolt. You can read about our difficulties here,
but the short of it is great tech, questionable deadbolt. We would love
to see Unikey, the company behind Kevo, offer up an alternative. We're
also anxious for more time with Goji, August,
and any other smart locks, from new vendors or from traditional
companies like Yale and Schlage. This is a category that seems ripe for
innovation, with a benefit that most consumers understand immediately.
CES is the time to show them off.
Smart thermostats
Here's another smart home category with a ton of obvious appeal. Nest and its Learning Thermostat have inspired gadget lust, copycats, and lawsuits. Nest's expansion into smoke detectors
(which talk to its thermostat) suggests the company might have larger
smart home ambitions. Google's interest also makes this category worth
watching. We might not see any huge connected thermostat news come out
of CES, but this particular category is hugely competitive, and loaded
with notable players. Any substantial news from the show here will
likely have ripple effects across the smart home at-large.
Smart everything else
Hence the title of this
post. Everyone has a crowd-funding campaign to build the next smart
whatever. Cheap sensors, and ubiquitous Wi-Fi and smartphones open up
the potential for all kinds of experimentation around connected home
products. Quirky's Egg Minder,
above, is just one example. I'm simultaneously looking forward to and
dreading products with the "see what sticks" approach we will surely see
at this year's show.
