Myths about smart houses
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The concept of the smartphone first appeared in the early 90s but experienced its first revolution in early 2007 with the launch of the iPhone. From that moment until today, more and more devices get the epithet “smart”. Often this term is exaggerated to such an extent that it completely loses its true meaning. Today, every manufacturer will label their device as smart, and every homeowner who has a smart light bulb will say that his house is smart. This creates confusion in the market which often then has effects on businesses and consumers. Below are some examples of myths that are ubiquitous today.
1. A smart home belongs to the do-it-yourself category.
Although many enthusiasts embark on building a smart home, often it ends with investing too much effort and energy in developing software which usually is an unreliable system that crashes every time the power goes out. Such non-professional systems are exposed to a great security risk.
A big problem is also the devices that can do only one function of the smart home and can’t coordinate with other smart devices. Typically, such devices are characterized as Plug ’n’ Play, and in practice, it has been empirically proven that such devices very often are more like Plug ’n’ PRAY. Integrating devices and systems, creating scenes, establishing different zones, designing a user interface with a balance between control, feedback, and simplicity — it all requires experience and skill.
2. Apps are smart.
Yes and no. Apps can sometimes be smart enough to control one product, but if a user wants more than that, most inexpensive mobile apps can’t meet their expectations.
A smart speaker, a smart light bulb, and a smart thermostat are just some of the products that these days often come with a mobile app. These apps are labeled as smart, but they are only partially so. They manage the house in a fragmentary way and as such do not provide users with the ability to manage the whole house.
The fact that such fragmentary yet smart apps exist leads to an underestimation of the ability to control the entire house. All the above leads to a decrease in confidence in our industry.
In conclusion, for an app to be called smart in the full sense of the word, it must meet certain conditions. It must be able to connect to every part of the smart home, whether physical or in the cloud. In addition, it must process the obtained data, it must be manageable from any location, and it must set priorities and execute orders with certainty. This is the real magic that a smart home can give us!
3. Smart devices work together.
Today, the market is flooded with smart devices that work using Wi-Fi, which leads to the classic idea that in fact, all these devices communicate together. We must disappoint you — that is simply not the case. How is it that devices that are known as smart devices are just not that smart?
The answer is simple. Different companies design different management apps, and often the same companies are competing. Also, there are no national or industrial standards that regulate how much and in what way a device should be smart. The positive thing about the whole story is that some of the manufacturers are writing APIs (thank you) — they are writing program codes that can be used to access the apps they have created — allowing developers to develop additional apps to manage their devices.
Some companies promote a home control platform that in theory brings together different devices from different companies. However, some of these platforms do not have sufficient capacities to integrate with other devices and are often based on working with only one part of the market, i.e., devices that are only compatible with other products of the same brand. The only way we can create a meaningful control ecosystem is to buy a professional CPU, like Crestron, buy API smartphones, and hire software experts like us from ONIO Interactive, who can make all smart devices controllable so they can work together.
4. Technology becomes obsolete very quickly.
This myth applies to devices that once shone on the market and that do not receive a single upgrade over time. Sometimes the affordable price of such devices is what is most attractive, so we do not even think about what will happen to the device in a few years. Such low-end devices make this myth more powerful.
When buying a device, you need to carefully choose a quality manufacturer, in other words, the one whose products allow you to upgrade software via the cloud. If everyone thought that way while shopping, we would not have to write about this myth today. There would be no more outages in the systems, no extra costs, and no stressful weekend calls if the garage was locked and you would like otherwise. Be careful what you buy and whom you hire when it comes to choosing technology.
5. A smart home is not secure, and it can be hacked easily.
Although security, in all its forms, is paramount to most people today, low-end devices have built such a public opinion that smart homes are not safe and that hacking them is easy. Crestron control systems adhere to the strictest safety standards. The same Crestron system you can have in your home has been installed in several governments and military facilities, global banking institutions, and hospitals. When properly programmed by a certified Crestron expert, as is the case with our team at ONIO Interactive, the Crestron smart home is the golden standard for safety, comfort, and convenience.
