05:24
The home automation sector is a wide open market that is valued at billions by analysts. But unless the technology becomes more user friendly – and fast – there's a very real danger that it won't see the kind of widespread market penetration that businesses are hoping for.
The potential for huge profits has led a large number of companies to enter the race at different levels of the supply chain, yet several years down the line we still don't have a dominant player on the field.
Both Apple and Google want to be that dominant player. But is there enough room at the top for both of them?
Issues with standards
The sheer number of home automation products and services on offer has not made life easier for typical consumers. One of the major problems is that these different products often use different networking protocols, meaning that the 'connected home' isn't interconnected at all, unless you buy all of your devices from the same manufacturer or use a professional installer.
The consumer, and the market in general, would benefit greatly from an industry-wide networking protocol standard that could do the same thing for the smart home that Wi-Fi did for laptops and tablets.
Naturally it would take a tech company with a lot of clout to enforce a standard networking protocol. They also wouldn't invest the resources needed to implement one networking protocol unless it benefitted their company more than their main competitors.
Apple and Google both have their own networking protocols that they would like to see used as industry standards. If their networking protocol sees widespread adoption, then their products become more valuable to consumers, their presence in the house will be maximised, and their profits will rise. If their networking protocol dies out, then their products will quickly become about as useful as a Betamax video cassette player.
Will home automation use low energy Bluetooth (and Wi-Fi)?
Apple's networking protocol of choice, low energy Bluetooth, already has several significant advantages over its competitors. Firstly, there's already a certain amount of consumer recognition in place. Users are familiar with the name Bluetooth and are confident that it will work with a number of different products.
Secondly, Apple has already invested a huge amount of work by putting low energy Bluetooth into all of its devices. This means that developers for HomeKit, Apple's system for home automation, will be able to make devices that communicate easily and effectively with Apple products, including the all-important iPhone and iPad.
Thirdly, Apple as a company has done much to encourage developers, and smaller companies, developers and hardware manufacturers are working hard to develop products and services that they hope will become an important part of Apple's vision of the smart home. If these companies are successful in creating products that appeal to consumers or services that add value to an Apple smart home, then the overall Apple/Bluetooth package will become more attractive.
Arguably, Apple already has an important edge here. The iPhone, which would act as an interface for an Apple-powered smart home, has such widespread market penetration that many consumers will naturally gravitate towards smart lights, locks and thermostats that they can control with their iPhone. The keys to an Apple smart house are already in their pockets. iDevices with its iGrill meat thermometer (and Switch just revealed at CES), along with Savant with its Made For iPhone smart appliances, are two companies already demonstrating that working with Apple can be a shortcut to success.
Why Google's Thread might beat Apple's Bluetooth
However, for all Apple's advantages the networking protocol war is far from finished. Google has formed an 'industry group' with a number of companies, including Samsung, that are committed to a rival networking protocol known as Thread.
Samsung's involvement is crucial here. Unlike either Apple or Google, Samsung is a proven manufacturer of a wide range of devices that you would expect to see in a smart home – think washing machines and refrigerators. Samsung is the only company that has been able to outdo Apple in terms of smartphone market share, if not profits. In other circumstances you might have tipped Samsung itself to come out on top, and the firm still might, but with profits sliding, it seems unlikely that the company is in a position to pull off the 'big play' needed to beat the other two.
Google's high-profile purchase of Nest Labs has already secured it a generous portion of the smart devices market. The Nest Learning Thermostat is a proven product that is easy to use, saves the consumer money, and is already the first thing that many people think of when you mention the term 'home automation.' Google has the potential to capitalise on Nest Labs good reputation with an expanded range of products.
Is the existing situation with networking protocols viable?
Could there be a future in which the competing networking protocols, including ZigBee and Z-Wave, coexist? It's a possibility. For those with the purchasing power, professional installers are an excellent solution to interoperability issues.
Another solution is using a hub to enable different networking protocols to 'communicate' with one another. Unsurprisingly it's Samsung that recently acquired SmartThings, one of the most successful hub makers out there. Acquiring a hub maker has allowed the company to continue competing for the home automation market, but without making the massive investments needed to go head-to-head with Apple or Google directly.
However, in the long run, the absence of an industry standard networking protocol would likely be a situation neither consumers nor large companies would be truly happy with. In those conditions, mass market home automation would struggle to truly make life easier for consumers, and therefore fail to achieve widespread adoption. This would also cause the larger companies to miss out on widespread profits.
Will Apple or Google win the smart home war? At the moment, Apple, with the all-important iPhone, is fractionally better placed to take the smart home, though much depends on the successful release of HomeKit. Yet Google is very well situated itself and the tiniest slip from Apple could prove fatal. When it comes to new technology, we can only be sure that 2015 will be a very exciting year.
- Malcolm Stewart is founder of Kensington AV, a company that installs home automation products and AV in and around London
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