The EconomistSeptember 14th 2019 Technology Quarterly |The Internet of Things 52
1many of the technologies necessary to make
them work already exist. Consumers can buy
smart light bulbs, such as Hue from Philips, a
Dutch electronics giant, which can be switched
on or off by phone or voice and can generate
thousands of tones and shades. Viewers of “12
Monkeys”, an American science-fiction tvse-
ries released in 2015, can download an app that
will sync with their light bulbs, automatically
changing their colour and brightness to match
the mood of an episode moment by moment.
gsma Intelligence, the research arm of a
mobile-industry trade body, reckons that smart homes will be the
biggest part of the consumer side of the iot(see chart on next
page). For now, most of the applications are more prosaic than
powering a futuristic home cinema. Besides light bulbs, techno-
phile consumers can use voice-activated window-blinds, robotic
vacuum cleaners and mattresses that track heart rate, movement
and sleep patterns (and also nag you about your poor “sleep hy-
giene”). Wifi-connected, camera-equipped fridges can let you
check their contents from anywhere in the world.
Security is another popular use, says Alexandra Rehak, who
heads the iotdivision of Ovum, a firm of tech analysts. Smart
doorbells have built-in surveillance cameras and motion detec-
tors. Their users can choose to let visitors in by unlocking the door
over the phone.
idc, a market-analysis firm, reckons 833m smart-home gadgets
of various sorts will be sold in 2019, a number that it forecasts will
double by 2023. Most of these devices sell themselves on a combi-
nation of comfort, convenience and cost-saving.And he built a crooked house
It all sounds good in theory. But Ben Wood, the chief of research at
ccsInsight, another firm of analysts, says that installing and
maintaining smart gadgets—let alone trying to get them to work
together—can be a chore. “It’s a very Heath Robinson kind of patch-
work, a jigsaw puzzle of connectivity.” He should know: besides
his day job, Mr Wood is a keen tinkerer who has converted his own
house into a home smart enough to win a European award in 2017,
complete with voice-activated lighting and windows, room-by-room heating, phone-controlled speakers and a
camera-equipped door that can be locked or un-
locked from anywhere in the world.
Making it work required installing 2km of
network cabling, all of which feeds back into a
cupboard containing a set of rack-mounted
computers that would not look out of place in a
data centre. Another problem is that products
from one manufacturer often fail to work well
with those from another. Standards do exist:
Zigbee and z-wave are wireless networking pro-
tocols designed for the type of low-power radios
found in smart-home gadgetry. But many firms either use propri-
etary standards or implement existing standards in ways that pre-
vent their products working with those from other companies.
Many companies are involved. Tim Hatt at gsmaIntelligence
says that telecoms firms are keen to find new, higher-margin busi-
nesses rather than simply acting as “bit pipes”, so they have built
smart-home offerings as well. Vodafone, a telecoms company, ad-
vertises thev-Home hub as a central control point for smart-home
devices. skTelecom, a South Korean firm, has the Nugu. at&t, an
American company, offers its Smart Home Manager. Others are
startups, such as Wink, which launched with backing from Gen-
eral Electric. In Britain, even British Gas, a former state-owned en-
ergy monopoly, has got in on the act. It launched Hive, a smart-
home ecosystem in 2013.
That fragmentation means risks for early adopters and high-
lights some of the problems involved in installing gadgets that rely
on external services. Last year Logitech, a Swiss company, stopped
supporting its Harmony Link smart hub, which was designed to
get smartphones to act as universal remote controls. In 2016 Re-
volv, a smart-home startup that had been bought by Google, an-
nounced that its app and home hub were being abandoned, leav-
ing the firm’s customers high and dry. “My house will stop
working,” wrote one disgruntled user.
The companies best placed to solve the fragmentation pro-
blem, and thus to dominate the business, are the existing internet
giants—and specifically Google and Amazon, thanks to their lead
in the fast-growing smart-speaker market. Until fairly recently,
says Mr Wood, the assumption was that smart homes would beConsumers can use
voice-activated
window-blinds and
mattresses that track
heart rate and sleep
patterns