Expensive and complicated?: Smart Home: The most stubborn prejudices

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Already 100 years ago, actor Buster Keaton addressed today’s smart home in a specific way in his short film “The Electric House”. In the silent film, Keaton plays a botanist who accidentally gets a degree in electrician and turns his house into an engineering marvel.

A lot has changed since then; With advancing digitalization, smart homes are becoming more and more common. However, prejudices against smart home and smart solutions remain: too complex, too expensive, incompatible devices, lack of data protection, etc.

We reject these prejudices; If these are just prejudices.

No, smart thermostats, lighting systems, video surveillance systems, door locks and much more are already part of everyday life. AI has already greatly expanded the capabilities of smart home devices and will continue to do so by recognizing patterns, adapting to your preferences, and constantly becoming smarter.

But thanks to advances in standardizing smart home protocols and platforms, this is working better and better. And the new smart home standard “Matter” now provides a manufacturer-independent basis for networked devices in the home.

It depends on how you interpret the term “smart.” Smart in the sense of intelligent means that your lamp turns on and off at the right time without your intervention. Smart in terms of simple use and control, all products or all lighting in the house and garden can be controlled using a smartphone, tablet or voice control.

Undoubtedly, it is easiest if you can plan all home automation elements in advance. However, since the vast majority of applications work with radio and communicate via WLAN or Bluetooth, old apartments and houses can also be renovated.

If you want to completely network a building or want a comprehensive smart home system, it is beneficial to have the installation done by an expert. Otherwise, individual applications are designed to be user-friendly enough to allow you to do things “smartly”.

No, power consumption is manageable. You can also reduce your energy consumption with smart energy management systems such as smart thermostats or lighting.

Data protection is very high in a purely local network that is not connected to the Internet. In systems in the cloud, your user data is stored on external, protected servers such as Apple, Google or Amazon. When devices are connected via WLAN, Bluetooth or mobile network, external access cannot be 100 percent ruled out. However, thanks to proven security practices and regular software updates, the risk of your data being leaked is low. But one thing is clear: When you order pizza via Alexa, the system needs your location information, otherwise the pizza will never come to your home…

Source : Blick