Video: Home Automation in 2017 Means “Talking IP in the Cloud”

CNET held an interesting Smart Home discussion during last weeks CES. The panel was made up of industry insiders from SmartThings, Amazon Echo, Google Home and August Locks.

Amazons Echo seemed to be everywhere at this years CES and it’s made a huge impact in the smart home world in a relatively short space of time.

Meanwhile Apple are still tooling around trying to get the basics together years after the launch of HomeKit. Alexa looks set to eat Siri’s lunch in the home assistant market at this point.

The panelists see 2017 as the year that the starting point cost will come down to “less than $100” as smart home devices are going to be embedded into products you’re already buying.

SmartThings CEO Alex Hawkinson revealed that his company sees evidence of the smart home moving past the hobbyist market and becoming more widespread…

“We’ve seen a transition in the numbers that indicate the move from early adopter to mainstream.”

Of course there are still may challenges ahead. Securing the smart home, putting consumers first and allowing data sharing. Mike George, VP of Amazon Alexa / Echo said…

“The experience we create for a consumer has to abstract the complexity away”

The good news is that these panelists see the strength in collaborating. At last realising that the entire smart home industry benefits when integration is easy, rather than jealously protecting their own locked in part of it.

IoTivity and the Open Connectivity Foundation got a mention and CEO of August Locks Jason Johnson said…

“[in 2016] IP became the common language. All of our systems talk to each other in then Cloud, and we’ve found that talking IP in the Cloud has become the way for these devices and systems to talk to each other.”

The video below is well worth watching its entirety (especially if you not seen the home automation scene from Mr Robot) but you can click here to skip to around 42:10 for the section on data sharing with IP in the cloud.

Check out our Home Automation in the Cloud post from 2015 below…

Will The Cloud be the Integrator in the Sky to Save Home Automation?

CNET Smart Home :  iotivity.org

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2 Comments on "Video: Home Automation in 2017 Means “Talking IP in the Cloud”"

  1. Mark – many thanks for including – good discussion, well above what’s usual in such things (IMO) … Chris

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