Event on Home Automation and Smart Living
Thursday I went - together with my brother (Martin) - to an event on Home Automation (Beurs Domotica & Slim Wonen). On this event a number of installers and manufacturers of home automation equipment were represented. We used this opportunity to do some market research.
Most significant to realize, and what we knew before going to the event, is that the companies at the event focus mostly on the higher segment of the home automation market. Examples are Philips with their Pronto, Siemens with KNX hardware and a lot of manufactures of touch screen units.
Software solutions
We were mainly interested in manufacturers of software solutions. We talked to some of them which gave us a good indication of where the home automation market stands today. Some of the most remarkable things were the user interfaces. Some of them were so messy that we didn't understand where all the buttons were meant for. Others were kept as generic as possible which made it difficult to distinguish features by importance and type. There were some more impressive ones, but they need to be configured by the installer. We think a lot of improvements are possible here.
Another significant thing is the support of systems of external parties. KNX is by far the most supported standard enabling manufacturer independent extendibility. Some companies will also support the X.10 which is popular in the lower segment of the market. Extensions to other systems like a/v equipment however are something that seems to have a lower priority. One system we saw had an integrated web radio, but this was limited to one party. If they supported DLNA, lots of other a/v applications would be possible as well.
The lower segment
Within the lower segment of the market we find manufacturers like KlikAan-KlikUit and Marmitek (X.10). They also offer software, but these are very limited in functionality and often support only their own systems or single protocol. Their equipment however is affordable for a much larger audience. An example of not manufacturer specific software is HomeSeer, which offers extensibility through APIs. An advantage of the HomeSeer software is that is has a large community of enthusiastic peopele developing add-ins for even the more affordable equipment. However, the average computer user would not have enough experience with finding and configuring these extensions. So, where the price is the barrier to a large audience within the higher segment of the market, the complexity is the barrier for the lower.
Significant players in the future
I believe that sooner or later home automation will become as common as the telephone and internet access. A growing market that is related to home automation is that of the Smart Metering. Within the near future utility companies will roll out many electricity, water and gas meters that send 'usage information' to a central system. Each meter will have its own data connection. This data connection will however have a lot more potential. This is something companies like Microsoft and Google also realize. These data connections might become a new gate for them to deliver information based services. Smart meters might also contain communication interfaces to home automation systems, so this might also be an opportunity to them to get access to this part of your house to without the need of a home server or internet connection. And so there are many other examples of existing multinationals that might extend their market this way.
Conclusion
Home automation is a living and growing market with enough space for innovations. Complete solutions can been found within the higher market segment. To make these complete solutions accessible to the lower segment of the market, home automation systems will have to become less complex and the need of custom development and configuration needs to be taken away. At this moment a lot of innovations comes from small start-ups, but it would not be inconceivable that large companies like Microsoft and Google will enter the market soon.