Wandering around our local Curry’s the other day, a big box electrical seller in the UK, I was interested to see an entire aisle now given over to home automation products like those from SmartThings and Bo.
Other smart home gear has come and gone in sellers like B&Q in the past, but is this tech finally starting to acquire traction amongst the masses?
German home automation brand Loxone has had a base in the UK because 2012. They offer a extensive and quality mid-market smart home system that’s somewhere between the budget plugin modules and the ultra-expensive bespoke systems for millionaires.
We asked them about their success and where the smart home is headed.
What is the general trend in smart homes at the moment?
As you’d expect, Germany is still leading the way in Europe for smart homes, with France hot on their heels. elsewhere in the world, the us and China are seeing the most investment in the smart home industry and there are no signs of this slowing down in years to come. numerous companies are beginning their international expansion, entering new markets and creating new products.
Thirty new smart home hubs were launched at the CES this year, and there are several new ‘smart’ products per week hitting the market. In the UK we’re seeing some of the larger retailers, such as John Lewis, stocking a small selection of off-the-shelf-products such as Nest.
There seem to be unlimited options & products – how can anybody choose?
Initially, the choice can seem overwhelming, but when you break it down, many products and services tend to fall into one of three categories, as articulated by Martin Garner of CSS insight at smart home summit earlier this year:
The first of these categories is ‘point products’, such as single-zone smart thermostats. These products are a single device with one app and one cloud. The advantages of them is that they lower the barriers to entry for numerous people and have greatly helped grow the awareness around smart homes. The problem, however, is that often these products are complete island services and the much more you buy, the much more tangled it gets to manage them all.
After point products comes ‘horizontal cloud services’. These look to bring numerous devices with numerous separate apps together into a single cloud.
The third category are eco-system solutions. As the name suggests, these are developed to look after the home in its entirety. initial setup costs are often higher, however, the long term savings and benefits easily offset these. together with the highly intuitive nature and simplicity of a centrally managed system, eco-system services are forecast to be the the choice of numerous consumers.
How do you think this will influence the market over the next five years?
We’re very optimistic for the future. I think we’ll certainly see even much more new products hit the market, as awareness of smart homes continues to grow. As energy saving becomes an increasingly essential consideration for homeowners, we anticipate that the majority of new ‘point products’ will be focused around lighting, heating and integration of renewable energy sources.
As I mentioned, the influx of the much more cost effective standalone services brings fresh interest to the smart home industry and opens up smart homes to a much larger audience. An advantage for us is that once someone begins to research into controlling one aspect of their home such as their heating, it opens up their mind to thinking about their home as a whole.
Besides lighting and heating, are there any other areas of the home where you predict growth?
We feel that ‘smart audio’ will become an increasingly essential consideration for homeowners as the bridge between automation and home entertainment strengthens. earlier this year, we released our new music Server, which we developed specifically for smart homes to help meet this need.
The other area getting a lot of attention in the media are smart appliances. For some reason, connected white goods are being touted as the way forward to rid the land of domestic drudgery. The only issue is that there’s a bit of a demographic mis-match with these products. The concept of a high-end, smart appliance is appealing to younger buyers, however, younger buyers don’t typically purchase premium appliances. So the possibility of a broad adoption of these is rather slim.
How has 2015 differed from 2014 for Loxone?
We have seen rapid growth throughout both 2014 and 2015 with company levels enhancing by practically 200% this year. We put this down to an enhancing awareness about smart homes and a larger product portfolio.
We launched our Miniserver Go towards the end of 2014, and have been extending our Loxone Air range to offer a complete retrofit service for smart Homes. Our best selling product has been the Valve Actuator Air, which offers smart zoned heating and enables cost savings of up to £400 for the averålder Storbritannien hem på sina verktygsräkningar.
Traditionellt betraktades smart hemteknologi endast av själventreprenörer och specificerades för skräddarsydda byggnader. Ökningen av konsumentmedvetenheten har emellertid väckt ett intresse för installationen av smart hemteknologi i spekulativ utveckling, som står för 90% av den brittiska husbyggnadsmarknaden. Detta är en mycket viktig förändring för branschen som helhet och har resulterat i att Loxone väljs som den produkt som valts av flera medelstora utvecklare. Nästa år kommer till och med att se det första storskaliga antagandet av Loxone i utvecklingen av flera enheter av National House Builders.
Den positiva resonansen på den brittiska marknaden har resulterat i att vi investerar i nya lokaler med showroom -anläggningar för att tillåta branschpersonal och husägare att uppleva fördelarna med en smart hem första hand.
För att hantera det förbättrade kravet för utbildade installatörer har vi också skapat dedikerade utbildningsanläggningar och till och med utrustat den första UTC -högskolan med Loxone för att träna nästa generation smarta hemtekniker.
Vad går dina planer på 2016?
Vi ser framåt till ett år som kommer att se vår verksamhet expandera både i Storbritannien och globalt, med flera nya kontor och showrooms som öppnas över hela Europa. Nya förvärv och utvidgningar kommer att resultera i ett större utbud av produkter för att förenkla processen för att utveckla och bygga smarta hem ännu mer.
Viktiga kommersiella partnerskap i den förnybara industrin kommer också att se ett antal nya kompatibla produkter och avancerade integrationsfunktioner för riktigt smart energihantering.
Mer om Loxone: Loxone.com
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