Fast read
Artificial intelligence (AI) and the development of smart home technology are predicted to provide a wide range of features and capabilities in the future of highly integrated, automated smart homes. Voice activation, smart walls, smart kitchens, and connectivity with electric vehicles are potential possibilities.
Future smart homes are anticipated to be highly individualised and effective, adjusting to each person's requirements and preferences while consuming less energy and providing more comfort and convenience.
It is also expected that increasingly sophisticated security systems with facial recognition and other biometric characteristics will be used. In general, it is anticipated that the smart home of the future will be a place that can change to accommodate shifting requirements and tastes while also improving energy efficiency and ease.
How will the Smart Home of the future look and feel?
It seems as though smart homes have wide-reaching capabilities already, but what exactly will they be able to do in the future?
We predict that smart homes will become their own in the next decade, and smart home automation will become very exciting. It would be expected that the advancement in Smart Home functionality will be thanks to artificial intelligence (AI).
What will it be able to do?
It is expected that eventually, your home will be able to scan your schedule, automatically wake you up when you need to get up, turn on the kettle for your morning tea, and give you the latest news via TV, digital messages, or other devices. Likewise, you will find out about the weather the same way without opening the curtains. These advancements are why the global smart home device market is predicted to reach almost $140 billion in turnover by 2030.
As more smart home devices reach the market, the more the capabilities of smart homes will increase. The future of smart homes is also expected to include widespread microphones around your home so voice activation capabilities aren’t limited to being within the proximity of a Google Home or Amazon Alexa.
Other expected advancements also include whole walls that light up, preventing the need for central bulbs. In addition, we may see kitchens that can automatically scan the nutritional value of your food. As well as robotic mechanisms that can whip you up a meal.
What is a Smart Home in a simple explanation?
Your phone is the remote control of the connected smart home. Your devices, from TV to air-conditioning, hot water, lighting, washing machine, solar, batteries, and many more, can be managed automatically via the connection of your smartphone and your home internet. The whole purpose is to save energy and increase the comfort level of your home, save you time and make your home safer.
A smart home can start with simple plug-and-play devices or can get a whole new security system or an integrated smart home lighting system installed. This will require the services of a specialist.
The improvement in voice recognition technology has driven Smart Home development. Many devices can now be operated using voice commands instead of fiddling with the buttons.
Naturally, a smart home will need more sensors, cabling, and equipment, and all these devices can still fail. Therefore we recommend only purchasing and installing smart home items where a reliable after-sales service can be obtained for many years.
Many smart home devices also have a remote fault-finding service and fault alarm as part of their makeup. For example, solar inverters and monitoring systems can send alerts when the PV system produces less electricity than expected. If a number of these alerts can go through, then one should call a solar installer to check if one of the panels has any issue to cause the alerts.
Energy use reduction will be a crucial driver of smart home technology
Energy use and the smart use of solar can be achieved via sophisticated monitoring equipment, smart meters, and tuning of devices such as heat pumps and pool pumps. Aligning with maximum solar generation. This will then result in less renewable energy being exported and lower electricity bills.
As heating and cooling can consume as much as 40% of a home’s energy, running air conditioners more efficiently is very important. In the future smart thermostats will be controlling the heating and cooling equipment, allowing the units to be ramped up and ramped down in line with data from room sensors and behaviour patterns in the home.
Zonal control will be a critical consideration in reducing energy consumption. This is because it makes no sense to heat or cool an area of the home that is not used.
EVs of the future will be able to come home and have their battery connected to the home and either charge the batteries or supply the backup power for the home in the event of a blackout.
A display in your home or phone could show your current electricity running costs in real-time and accumulated costs. By getting visual indications of how much energy one home uses. One can influence this consumption to achieve lower electricity bills.
More complex in-home displays, which need to be connected to a smart meter, can also show the total power used in a home at a particular time. The electricity generated by the solar system, the power in Watts supplied by the battery to the house in real-time, and the costs or credits you are earning right now.
Will I need a degree to operate a smart home?
In order to be successful, many of the future products will need to be very easy to operate. This means all generations in a home, the old and young, can benefit from the connected home. Many devices will just need to be plugged in and then entirely automatically, often via AI, will create appropriate settings and protocols.
Some smart lighting could need some extra programming and riding devices to get the most out of them. But we predict it will not be successful if a smart appliance or product is not simple.
Getting help from virtual assistants
Many of us have already had the experience of getting help from a virtual assistant. “Alexa – what is the time?” “Alexa play best of Crowded House” are typical commands we give our Virtual Assistant now. In the future, we will be able to ask things like: “Alexa – please run a hot bath”, or “Alexa – the room is too hot, please make it cooler – 21 degrees would be ideal”, or finally – “Alexa the room is too bright – please close the blinds”. I suppose you get the idea.
By connecting Virtual Assistance, which is linked with a smart speaker, with many other home devices. We can automate many processes, saving us time and money.
One has to watch that all these intelligent home management devices do not chew through a lot of power and negate all the energy savings we achieved in the 1st place. However, maybe our Virtual Assistant can fix even such problems.
What about privacy?
There have been reports of security cameras in smart homes being hacked and private data being stolen, like in the Optus Hack of 2022. Therefore, data protection and appropriate security protocols have to be strengthened in line with the growth of the smart home to develop the trust with consumers required to grow this technology.
These are just some of the advancements that can be expected, and who knows how common they will be, but you can undoubtedly expect that intelligent homes and smart home devices are only on the rise. The future of our homes will undoubtedly consist of increased home automation and devices that haven’t even been thought of yet.
Finally, unfortunately, right now, not all smart home devices are compatible. Different manufacturers offer different protocols and plugs, and sometimes devices can not talk to each other. It’s like with battery-powered power tools; many batteries will only fit their brand and not another manufacturer’s device. But it is improving, and we expect the industry to be standardised over time.
