Published: 3 July 2014
Category: Industry News
Things are hotting up in the smart home market and consumers may soon be exposed to hundreds of new devices and apps like IFTT (If This Then That) to monitor and control their homes from just about anywhere, reports Tech Central.
Nest’s acquisition of Dropcam comes just weeks after Apple announced HomeKit, a toolkit that will allow iOS developers to create software to drive smart home devices from the iPhone.
“Eventually, the plan is for us to work together to reinvent products that will help shape the future of the conscious home,” said Nest founder Matt Rogers on the Dropcam deal. Dropcam not only gives Google a business that specialises in in-home cameras, it also provides access to Tabs — small Bluetooth sensors that extend monitoring functions to areas that Dropcam cameras might not see such as movement on doors and windows.
Apple senior vice-president Craig Federighi also spoke about “bring rationality” to the home automation market when he announced HomeKit at the company’s recent Worldwide Developers Conference. “There are a lot of home automated devices now, like garage doors and thermostats,” Federighi said. “The HomeKit API [application programming interface] will create a secure pairing structure so that developers can control individual devices in your home and group them together.”
Together, Apple and Google virtually control the smartphone market. If anyone can deliver on the vision of a smart and connected home, it’ll probably be one or both of them. But why the intense focus on it all of a sudden?
One could argue it is the next major untapped evolution of the technology industry, but it’s likely it has more to do with expanding the user base of the companies’ platforms and capturing a market that wants more control from their smartphones. And by control, there are a lot of things that smartphone users want to do with their devices.
With Nest, Google wants to insert itself at the centre of the smart home. And Dropcam will extend the functionality of what users will be able to do with connected devices at home. In line with this, Google this week announced its “Works with Nest” ecosystem that will enable third-party manufacturers to develop gadgets that will communicate with Nest.
Fast-forward three to five years and the modern home will contain a new layer of Internet-controlled devices that will not only look after home automation, but also people’s safety and comfort. People will be able to employ IFTTT (If This Then That) to set conditional statements to control in-home systems. For example, they’ll be able to tell their smart home that when their alarm clock goes off in the morning, the kettle should switch on, the lighting should change and the living room window should open so the cat can go and do its business outside.
The same technology can also be used to alert an armed response company when motion is detected, or alert the fire brigade when smoke is detected.