The smart home market is growing rapidly, and more and more companies are investing in it. To enhance understanding of smart homes, this article will introduce the concept and factors influencing their development.
I. What exactly is smart home?
Smart homes can be seen as a manifestation of the Internet of Things (IoT) under the influence of the internet. A smart home refers to a system that uses a residence as a platform, integrating home-related facilities through comprehensive wiring technology, network communication technology, security technology, automatic control technology, and audio-visual technology to build an efficient management system for residential facilities and daily household affairs.
Smart home development started earlier abroad. In the 1930s, the concept of "home of the future" first appeared at the Chicago World's Fair, and the concept of home automation also appeared for the first time.
In 1950, the design of the "Button Manor" concept became the first truly automated home space in history; Kissimmee, born in 1985, first presented the vision of human-computer interaction; in 1999, Microsoft's smart home promotional video basically successfully predicted the current form of the Internet of Things smart home.
In fact, as early as 1995, the United States and Singapore had already promoted smart homes extensively, with the average cost of installing a smart home being as high as $7,000, but the usage rate was only 0.3%.
During this period, even the overseas smart home industry was still in its infancy. The entire industry was in a stage of conceptualization and product awareness, and there were no professional smart home manufacturers.
Around 2000, as the living standards in China continued to improve, the demand for improving the living environment and enhancing living comfort also increased, and the smart home industry gradually entered its early stages of development.
At that time, the domestic development model mainly focused on replacing manual operation with mechanized home appliances, promoting automated home operation. For example, the automatic management of appliances, curtains, garage doors, and other equipment could reduce the workload of users, but the level of intelligence was relatively low. Most of these applications were only used in engineering installations, mainly for building intercoms, fire protection, and electrical control systems, and were rarely used in home renovations.
With the iteration and upgrading of technology, smart home products have gradually emerged, such as smart door locks, smart lighting, and smart TVs. The domestic smart home industry has entered a period of development, but individual products are isolated from each other and cannot connect and communicate with each other.
With the rise of companies like Dooya and Hikvision, and the maturity of technologies such as radio frequency, Wi-Fi, and 4G, smart homes have entered the Internet of Things (IoT) era. Devices that can be linked and controlled, such as motorized curtains and remote monitoring cameras, are gradually becoming popular in home life.
During this period, more than 50 smart home R&D and manufacturing companies were established in China, mainly concentrated in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Tianjin, Beijing, Hangzhou, Xiamen and other places. The marketing and technical training system for smart homes has also gradually improved.
Around 2015, the domestic smart home industry ushered in an era of rapid growth, giving rise to a large number of excellent smart home brands, such as HDL, Xinhechuang, Ziguang, Nanjing IoT, Orvibo, Xiaomi, and Dade Zhongdian. At the same time, some home appliance companies, while adding intelligence to their home appliances, also entered the smart home industry, such as Haier, Midea, Rongshida, and TCL.
Furthermore, the rapid advancement of intelligent voice technology, with Amazon Alexa, Baidu Smart Speaker, Tmall Genie, and Xiaomi Smart Speaker entering countless households, has fueled the continued upward trend in smart home development, further "educating" the smart home market. The concept of smart homes is gradually maturing.
The transformation of home concepts from liberating labor to smart living can be seen as the first step for the home furnishing industry to break free from traditional imprints, completing a brand-new upgrade in the external form of the smart home industry.
II. What are the factors influencing the development of smart homes?
From the current fundamentals of smart home development, the factors affecting smart home development are mainly concentrated in three aspects: first, whether the application scenarios of smart homes can match the current intelligent needs of users; second, whether smart homes can expand their own functional boundaries and create new application scenarios based on smart homes; and third, whether the basic ecosystem can provide more support for smart homes.
To gain wider user acceptance, smart homes can start from a functional perspective. In the future, smart homes can create new application scenarios for intelligent products. For example, medical and health products can be implemented through scenarios created by smart homes. There will be many similar intelligent products, so the development of smart homes should be in line with user needs.
Currently, some smart home companies focus on their functional services. For example, smart home solutions designed for specific groups have become more popular. Among them, the functional needs of the elderly for smart homes are often quite realistic, especially for people with mobility difficulties.
For smart homes to become widespread, they need to further expand their functional boundaries. For example, some e-commerce platforms have begun to cooperate with smart home companies to jointly create smart home solutions that make shopping easier for users. Of course, some companies also hope to enter the smart home field by leveraging their own hardware products, which is also a common approach. In fact, some companies have already made many attempts in the home appliance sector.
Another factor affecting the widespread adoption of smart homes is the basic ecosystem. With the current implementation of 5G communication, the basic ecosystem of smart homes will be gradually improved. With the continuous improvement of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology system, smart home solutions will also become more diverse.
