Residential
According to recent research*, 41% of UK homeowners currently have some form of connected technology installed in their home and by 2020 it is estimated that every household will have at least 10 connected devices.
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But what is a "connected home"? The Oxford English dictionary sums it up quite well with the definition "a home that comes equipped with lighting, heating and electronic devices that can be controlled remotely by smartphone or computer".
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Today, people are only just dipping their toes into technology in the home, and in these early days it has been very much about using smart meters to reduce bills and thereby save money. Technology for convenience is very much the next evolution. At present there are six key areas of growth in the digital homes space: heating, lighting, security, safety, home hubs and device control.
Heating
Products like Nest, Hive and others allow you to adjust the temperature of your property through a simple mobile app. New devices on the market even allow you to change the temperature in individual rooms in a home. As well as convenience, these devices learn from your manual adjustments to heating and can adapt based on weather reports, meaning that your heating is never on when not needed. The latest developments even see these devices ‘talking’ to other functions of the house, such as lighting, to provide a more connected experience.
Lighting
Lighting technology can range from the novel, allowing you to change colours and turn lights on and off using your mobile phone, to the more practical, such as dimming when someone is not in the room, to save on electricity.
This year has also seen the introduction of lighting that can be voice activated – eliminating the need for switches.
Security
Security cameras currently allow you to access recordings through a cloud network or your mobile phone, whilst creating activity ‘zones’ with motion detectors which sense when an intruder has entered a certain space in or outside your home. Security cameras are also becoming increasingly sophisticated – incorporating night-vision, high-definition video and sending security alerts wherever you are in the world.
Safety
The latest incarnation of smart alarms, such as the Nest Protect Second Generation Wireless Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm is a convenient and non-intrusive way to keep your home safe. Capable of detecting both slow burning and fast burning fires it alerts you early on when the presence of smoke is detected, or if carbon monoxide levels are rising. Alerts are by human voice via an integrated speaker and, if connected to wifi you'll even get a message on your smartphone so you can keep tabs on your home and react to situations quickly and efficiently.
Home Hubs
The smart hub is designed to connect all the digital appliances in your house, from your TV to your lighting in one hub which can be accessed through one app. The current challenge with these devices is that there is not one standard network they all run on so consumers typically have to use smart products from the same smart hub manufacturer. To make things simpler, kits with the more common devices and hubs are available. As the marker grows, expect to see open standards developed allowing cross manufacturer inter-operability.
Appliance Control
Some of the latest appliances on the market now offer real consumer benefits, such as ovens that allow you to turn them on and off remotely from your mobile phone or showers that provide a spa-like experience – allowing you to change the colour of the lights, sound and temperature through your mobile device. However, these have minimal appeal due to their price point. Far more commonly deployed are "smart plugs" which allow you to turn on/off individual devices via your smartphone or voice activation assistants such as Amazon Alexa.
* Survey compiled by Barclays Mortgages and YouGov in October, 2015