No, because it’s still a big pile of mess.
On the surface, the smart home is doing well. The market is growing; and this past CES, smart home gadgets were everywhere, from kitchen appliances with voice assistants to vanity mirrors with built-in Bluetooth speakers to well-intentioned robot helpers.
But all this hides the fact that the smart home is still struggling. In my opinion, the avalanche of consumer smart devices will at best create smarter rooms, but the smart home market will remain stuck in this chasm of the technology adoption life cycle, battling to shed its novelty image and move beyond the early adopters stage and gain mass market adoption.
Ideally, a well-designed smart home is simple to use for all occupants, truly interoperable, and easy to maintain. And underpinning it is usually solid home automation.
But wait, isn’t smart home and home automation the same thing? Well, no. Home automation is just one aspect of a smart home. Have a smartphone app that you use to turn on the living room lights as you’re coming up in the lift? That’s one part of a smart home in action. Have the same lights turn on automatically when you enter through the front door, but only if it’s after sunset? Now that’s home automation.
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