Asking Alexa to silence a morning alarm or tell you the weather is hardly the smart home dream promised 10 years ago. Robots turning up with cocktails at the front door, systems that could watch our children while we whipped up dinner (or did both while we got in a run), or a home that knew our needs? For that, we’re still waiting.
The reality turned out a bit different: voice assistants didn’t work very well, devices from different brand ecosystems didn’t communicate, setup required constant tweaks, and tech standards were at best confusing. The majority of consumers interested in smart devices want something better: Devices that connect and without much effort.
Nearly 80 percent of people who use smart home products say having these gadgets work together is “very or somewhat important,” according to Deloitte — and one in three want their devices to go even further and work “seamlessly.”
Enter AI. While it’s hard to parse reality in this hype cycle, one thing seems certain: AI built in at the network or device level could finally make the smart home smart. That magic genie working its way across much of our lives may be the solution, say experts, to put into motion a home that revolves around our personalized needs without even asking.
Everything Speaks As One
Today’s smart home landscape is a sea of devices that speak multiple languages — and work across almost as many platforms. When one company shuts its doors, as Insteon demonstrated when it shut down in 2022, those devices quickly morph into expensive door stops. Consumers pay the price — both at the register and in the time and frustration trying to connect those devices. Why? They run on different operating systems.
That’s where Matter steps in — a consortium of the big players in the smart home space, including Amazon, Apple, and Google, hoping to create one standard where every product can meet, connect, and work.
Daniel Moneta, chair of the marketing and product group at Matter, notes that while he was at Google, the company ran a study revealing it took consumers 32 screens and over 10 minutes just to get smart home devices connected.
“Every one of those is a potential failure point,” he says. “And we’ve seen stats that 30% of smart home products are returned because the user couldn’t get it set up. That’s bonkers high.” Matter hopes to change that, allowing devices on multiple networks to speak to each other. That’s critical for consumers, knowing they’ll be able to buy the robot vacuum they prefer or the smart dishwasher that matches their home decor and that all of these products will speak to each other — and be easy to set up.
AI, which curates, processes, and interprets data in nanoseconds, will enhance that more. Smart devices that speak to each other will streamline how a home can operate, not just suggesting how to lower a utility bill but lower the blinds and delay a washing cycle on a warm day — on its own.
“With all of those additional rich layers of value coming into the home, that’s where AI gets more interesting bringing that all together,” says Moneta. “So whether you’re a consumer packaged goods (CPG), energy or security company, you can come in with a device or service, layer on top of that in a way you’ve never been able to before, speaking to your app, to the cloud and also speaking to the smart home system.”
Delegating Tasks
As smart home devices speak more fluently and are imbued with AI, they’ll not only work better with each other, they’ll work more intelligently with us. That means we may not just have a cleaner house, but we can hand over tasks to others in our household more comfortably, what P&G’s Monica Penagos calls “removing friction.”
For example, with voice recognition, smart assistants like Google Assistant and Alexa can already tell who’s asking it questions and pull up a personalized schedule or play a favorite song. So our smart speakers already know if they should tee up your favorite podcast — or your roommate’s.
But AI will bring that personalization into play at a higher level, not just accessing personal details but also sensing who is in the home — and adjusting how it works with that person.
“I think it will be customized to our health, age, ethics, everything you believe in,” says Faith Popcorn, founder and CEO of Brain Reserve. “It will personalize its interaction with each person in the home.”
A robot vacuum, for example, may scuttle back to its charging station when kids come home from school and homework hour starts, for example. Bath water will pour out at 70º for one member of a family and 80º for another. And smart washing machines and dryers won’t just do the laundry, but will think about how and when.
“The house responds to you and you’ll be able to delegate to someone in the house, like your daughter,” says Penagos, P&G Senior Director-Brand. “I know she can do it because the machine already has detergent, softener and we know it does a good job already.”
A Healthier You
Penagos believes one way the smart home will evolve will be its ability to make the invisible visible, particularly around health measurements — not just reading what’s in the air and water but personalizing that analysis. Today’s smart home already monitors details in our living space, noting if lights are on and even the air quality of a room. Some smart air monitors will turn colors, for example, if particulates are high.
Penagos notes that these systems will be able to do more, giving us information to know whether the air you’re breathing on a summer night is as healthy as in the winter or whether the water coming through the tap is at “the levels where they need to be,” she says, based on what we need to sustain our lives.
And Popcorn says that intelligence will seep throughout the home, making us aware of things happening in our environment and even in our bodies, details we wouldn’t see on our own. That will include sensors in our bathroom detecting health changes in real-time, for example, and even sending those details to your doctor. In that way, an AI-powered smart home won’t just read what’s happening — or handle tasks assigned, it will figure out what’s needed, handling those tasks without asking, tailored to you.
Says Popcorn: “It’s going to be customized and curated for you.”
With AI the smart home is poised to advance beyond a set of appliances. Monitoring details in our home, this smart system will tailor itself to the personalized demands of those inside its four walls — and go further, adjusting as conditions or needs change, all on its own. You’ll have a home that may not serve you up a cocktail when you walk through the door, but something better — a partner in helping us evolve in how we live.
“It’s going to take away the rough spots so you won’t have to adapt, it will do it for you,” says Popcorn. “It’s going to go from smart to brilliant.”
