Reimagining Smart Home Gadgets: Paving the Way to a Connected Lifestyle

From Nest’s Learning Thermostat and Google Home to smart water leak sensors and automated blinds, smart home gadgets have gained soaring prevalence worldwide. According to Today’s Homeowner, there are approximately 300 million smart homes around the globe, and in the U.S., over 60.4 million households have some type of smart home device.

Driven by the skyrocketing growth of technologies like AI and the Internet of Things (IoT), the smart home market is expected to keep growing at double digits and to increasingly redefine the way we live and relate to our space and our surroundings.

Throughout this piece, I will cover the evolution of smart homes and how they have ushered in a transformative era that has enhanced our lives. I will also share my perspectives on the future and how the present changes will shift our perception of home as we know it. Last but not least, I will talk about my personal story and how being a smart homeowner–and witnessing the deficiencies that some of the present solutions have to offer–led me to start my present company, Qubiot.

What is a smart home, and how did it come to life?

According to Investopedia, a smart home “allows homeowners to control appliances, thermostats, lights, and other devices remotely using a smartphone or tablet through an internet connection.” The article also states how smart homes can help users to save considerable amounts of both time and money.

Contemporary historians trace the inception of smart home technology to 1975. It was then that the X10, the world’s first home automation system, was released, enabling users to remotely control various devices in their houses.

30 years after that, in 2005, Danish company Zenitel developed the Z-Wave communication protocol, which enabled devices to communicate with each other wirelessly. This bolstered the development of smart devices like lighting, security systems, and thermostats, among others, and laid the foundation to create the interconnected ecosystem that smart homes would become.

Technological innovations continued accelerating at an unprecedented pace, and in 2010, former Apple engineers developed Nest, a learning thermostat that utilizes advanced sensors and machine learning algorithms to memorize homeowners’ preferences. These preferences are then used to create personalized heating and cooling schedules.

The Nest thermostat was a sensation, and in 2014, Google acquired Nest for $3.2 billion. This enabled the company to gain proprietary technology to enter the smart home market in a year that turned out to be a pivotal point for the industry. In 2014, Amazon launched the Echo, a smart speaker powered by the voice-controlled virtual assistant Alexa, and, in the same year, Apple unveiled Homekit, which enabled developers to integrate smart home devices with iOS devices for centralized control through AI-powered assistant Siri and the Apple Home app. It would take two more years for Google to integrate the smart gadget knowledge acquired from Nest, and in 2016, the company released Google Home, which came equipped with Google Assistant as a staple feature.

Since then, technology companies have intensified their quest to dominate the very attractive smart gadget market and also to tackle some of its most pressing challenges, especially data privacy, and security.

What does a smart home look like now?

It’s been five years since Google Home was first launched into the marketplace, and since then, there have been several rapid technological advancements and widespread adoption of smart home devices. However, to fully grasp these innovations, it is important to understand the underlying technologies behind a smart home, including artificial intelligence, IoT, touchless technology, and more.

Also, it is key to comprehend that smart homes are adapting to the latest trends. For example, there is an increased interest in home exercise tech, like smart trainers and smartwatches, and the market is expected to be worth over $14 billion by 2028. The same hype is being created around smart health, including devices like air purifiers and humidity sensors. However, none of this is complete without constantly increasing connectivity speed and guaranteeing total security of the enormous amounts of data that these devices gather.

Nevertheless, many benefits heavily outweigh the risks. Besides what I described above, smart homes provide us with increased safety (for example, through real-time monitoring), more efficient management of utilities (powered by technologies like video motion), and better prevention of any potential leak or problem.

The Future: Where is the smart home industry going?

Our smart home is only one piece in a much larger, completely integrated ecosystem. That was the aim of Quayside, a now-canceled development in Toronto pioneered by Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Alphabet (Google’s parent company) that aimed to create a smart city powered by digital innovation.

While Quayside did not materialize, other developments like Songdo in South Korea have and are well underway. This is a testament that when it comes to smart homes, I believe we have only seen the beginning. With innovations like smart healthcare, we will be at a point where my wearable devices sync with the city’s health monitoring system and provide me with personalized wellness recommendations based on my sleep patterns and vital signs. Also, smart exercise equipment will design personalized workouts to meet my goals.

Other areas where I foresee considerable progress coming include HVAC systems. New, smart heating and air conditioning installations will help to save energy, lower utility bills, and also, will adapt to whatever the outdoor conditions are and the present occupancy patterns, contributing to a triple bottom line: financial, social, and environmental.

Last but not least, a very important point. All these innovations outlined above will need to be controlled somehow, which opens up a paramount market–one for a device that is able to integrate successfully with all the existing protocols so that every smart home installation can be swiftly and seamlessly operated.

Qubiot: Introducing a new era in smart home devices

As someone who is very passionate about smart homes, I walk the talk. I live in a smart home. And if it wasn’t because of it, I would have never come across the moment that ignited the spark behind Qubiot, the world’s first universal infrared remote for decentralized smart homes.

One time, when I was on a business trip, my wife called me late at night because she was having a problem turning on the lights using the smart house’s system. Later on, I found out that the system’s control panel was broken, and this affected the functionality of every device in our house.

Based on this, and keeping in mind a strong emphasis on privacy and security, I led the development of Qubiot remote, which took us several months of trial and error. Qubiot aims to introduce a new era in smart home devices, and it has several key features. For example, the remote works without WiFi, which leads to increased security and uninterrupted usage, even if there is a power outage. Also, a very important element of Qubiot Remote is that it integrates with all the current smart home ecosystems, including Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Athom Homey, and more.

Final thoughts

One of my favorite speeches, the one that I turn to when things get hard, is Steve Jobs’ commencement lecture at Stanford University. I strongly resonate with the part where Jobs talks about connecting the dots and how we need to trust that everything that happens is for a reason.

In this case, if my wife had never experienced that issue when I was away, I might have never realized how pressing the need was for an all-in-one remote that could be used with every smart home system available. However, by seeing every problem as an opportunity, I unlocked the possibility of being a serious competitor in the home device market, which is worth up to $80 billion. Also, I am doing so while following one of my passions, which is designing things that help to make people’s lives easier.

By Dmitriy Lukin, Founder and CEO of Qubiot.