Smart Home Finally Gaining Consumer Acceptance, With Voice Control a Key, CES Told

Smart home and smart tech demand is being stimulated by being easier to use, better integrated with other services and products, having voice as a way to control such functions, and declining prices, panelists said. These developments are simplifying how users control the products, they said. The aim is to deliver "what consumers want to do" with smart home tech, said Belkin Chief Technology Officer Brian Van Harlingen. After "talk about it since the 1970s, it's really now starting to come into its own, and we're at this intersection where tech can really fulfill its expectations," he said. IoT/connected things "has to just work" well, said Lutron Vice President Michael Smith. "The consumer just wants it to work. They don't really want to know how it works, they just want it to be simple, they want it to be easy."

Earlier products that never became popular inform current development efforts, and now each company has a lot of data about how people use its products to guide future enhancements and new launches coupled with more customer feedback, panelists said. Samsung's failure about a decade ago with a smart refrigerator that got little interest and other such issues are like a baseball batter not getting a hit every first time at bat yet maintaining a .300 batting average, said Samsung Electronics America Senior Vice President Yoon Lee. "You need the other two or three times swinging to learn from the environment, to really make that hit" on the next try, he said: "We were experimenting with consumers and with the industry" and now "we can ride that wave" in the industry after "learning from the past."

Better underlying broadband and other system functionality helps smart homes. "Smart home products are becoming more reliable" partly due to connectivity, Van Harlingen said. Google's Chris Turkstra said it not only has to work "every time, but it also has to be very fast, well coordinated, and without these things, it's not going to be something people want to use." People make purchases based on the "experience" a device brings, said Lee. "When the consumer says this is not working, there is not a market for that, that particular experience is a lousy experience." The goal, he said, is to have a "perfect" experience.

That people are unlikely to keep using smart home tech that doesn't work every time is part of why the underlying ecosystems aren't always fully open platforms, panelists said. That means some platforms have proprietary portions while interfacing with many other products and standards, they noted. Lutron uses its Clear Connect RF protocol because it sees some safety elements of lighting and household control, said Smith. "We won't compromise, but interfacing to everyone else, through the cloud and other ways," is a goal, he said. "We're trying to position ourselves to be Switzerland" among different products and "we want them to all have Lutron," he added.

"We would love to incorporate" many others in Google's platform, which Turkstra described as open. "We're looking for partners in this industry to really force and drive us to innovation" and "do things we never thought of," he said, citing the company's increased "presence" at this show. Signs with "Hey Google" were widely observed around the Las Vegas Convention Center. Samsung will "partner with anyone," Lee said: "We're a big open advocate" and "we don't want our partners and third-party developers to think that you have to have Samsung to make this happen." Closed ecosystems may help products "get off the ground faster," but it may become a hurdle, he said. "We want the industry to grow; we just don't want [only] a particular experience to ... prosper."