18 Time October 3, 2016
The BriefTechnology
promised by many companies,” says Adam
Sager, founder and CEO of home-security-
camera maker Canary, “but the biggest
failure has been to conceive reasons why a
user would want their home to be smart.”
Sager says many ventures erred in trying
to sell new gear without first asking “why
they’re creating the technology.”
This disconnect between promise and
reality jarred early advocates. “The biggest
thing we found is that the early returns were
consumers getting it home and it didn’t
work,” says John Feland, CEO of Argus
Insights, a research firm that has studied the
adoption of smart-home technology. Some
consumers who bought Nest’s $99 smoke
alarm, for example, found that their wi-fi
network didn’t reach the location where
they’d hoped to install the gadget, blunting
its ability to communicate with other smart-
home gear. These types of installation issues
dampened enthusiasm, says Feland.
Technologists have a term for these
growing pains: the chasm, or the gulf
between the difficulties early adopters are
willing to endure to make a new technology
a part of their lives and what mainstream
consumers will put up with. A lot of
would-be best sellers have disappeared into
this chasm; there was e-commerce before
Amazon, smartphones before the iPhone
and wearable tech before Fitbit. But each
became a hit by simplifying the concept
enough to appeal to a mass audience. The
smart home hasn’t quite reached that
point yet. “It’s been 15 years we’ve talked
about the smart home,” says the CEO of
Philips Lighting, Eric Rondolat. “It has not
happened because of complexity.”
Put another way, what the smart home
has so far lacked is a brain, a central nervous
system to bring into concert a cacophony
of Internet-enabled lights, doorbells,
security cameras, locks and so on. That’s
what Silicon Valley is trying to crack right
now. Apple and Google both have plans to
do just that, building on their dominance
in smartphones and software. But Amazon
may have gotten there first. The company’s
Echo speaker—which understands
and responds to voice commands—is
increasingly able to control smart gadgets
throughout the home. Feland says this has
given the e-commerce giant an unlikely
edge. “When Echo came out, it was a
novelty, but Amazon was the first to give
your house a voice and personality,” he says.
Not unlike those space-age cartoons. □
3
Cook dinner
A soon-to-be-
released smart
oven, dubbed
June, will come
close to cooking
autonomously.
It knows, for
example, how
long to cook a
steak if your
preference is
medium rare,
thanks to built-in
cameras and
a scale. But,
when it becomes
available later
this year, it will
recognize only a
limited number of
foods.2
Fold laundry
Smart washing
machines and
dryers have
made it easier
to wash clothing,
but the folding
part remains
unsolved.
Japan-based
Seven Dreamers’
prototype
Laundroid robot
is a towering
machine that
folds garments—
but it could take
hours to finish a
full load.5
Secure itself—
completely
Security is a
priority for most
smart-home firms.
But that doesn’t
mean they can’t
be hacked. Univer-
sity of Michigan
researchers were
able to hack into
Samsung’s plat-
form in May, find-
ing a way to obtain
the PIN code for a
door lock.4
Grocery shop
Appliances from
Samsung and
LG come with
all sorts of tech
to let you see
what’s in your
fridge without
opening it. But
none of it is
smart enough
to detect when
you’re running
low on milk
or bread and
automatically
reorder it for you.1
Tidy up
Vacuums like the
Roomba save
time cleaning
our floors. When
it comes to
other household
chores, like
organizing kitchen
supplies or
hanging clothing,
not so much.
Robots that
handle tasks like
these, including
Boston Dynamics’
SpotMini, are
just research
projects for now
rather than real
products.CAN’T DO
But the smart
home has a
long way to
go before it
can fulfill the
classic idea of
a conscious
house.ILLUSTRATION BY JANNE IIVONEN