Held on CEDIA Expo’s Smart Stage as part of the Tech Talk series, David Pedigo, former VP of emerging technology at CEDIA, led a panel titled “Big IoT Trends and What They Mean to the Home-Tech Channel” featuring Michele Turner, senior director, Google Smart Home Ecosytem, and Jacob Atalla, VP sustainability initiatives, KB Home.
Here are five takeaways from the panel.
1. Smart Homes = Efficient Homes
“We look at sustainability as high-efficiency homes, but also a smart home, and I think they’re interchangeable. Because a smart home can do automated lighting, tell you information in real time about your energy usage, your water usage, and all of these things are important to us,” said Atalla.
2. Smart Home Technology Can Improve Lives in Unexpected Ways
“My mother-in-law has Alzheimer’s and we have a number of cameras in the house, just so we know what’s going on,” said Turner. “There are other things we have in the house that can help us help her, and have peace of mind around what’s happening on a daily basis. For people that are disabled, being able to have the voice assistant help them out — whether it’s turning on the lights or other chores in the house — we can do that [with technology].”
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“A smart home can enable an elderly person to stay in their home longer, rather than go to a nursing home or a long-term care facility. Technology is an enabler in that sense,” added Atalla.
3. Big Data is a Big Trend
“We are now seeing that what used to be separate systems for us — like air conditioning separate from the lighting and the water and so on — we’re seeing how we can bring them all together under the umbrella of artificial intelligence. Each of these systems can report back data to AI that takes that data, understands it, analyzes it in certain ways, sends it back to different devices that will do different things for the home,” said Atalla.
4. Forget DIY, It’s DIFM (Do It for Me)
“DIFM (Do It for Me), as this market evolves, is absolutely where we’re headed,” said Turner. “I talk to a ton of consumers as part of my job, and the biggest barrier we have to adoption today is that they’re afraid to put these things in — the minute they see wires, they’re out. Consumers really need you to be in there and helping them figure out how to set up a smart home and how to get the basics done.”
5. ‘There is So Much Money to be Made’
“The only thing that’s happened in the last five years in what people have said is a commoditized market is that the average integration company’s revenue has doubled, their average job size has doubled, and their net profitability has doubled so they’re four times more profitable than they were five years ago. There is so much money to be made for many years to come,” concluded Pedigo.
