Smart home devices: benefits and reasons for demand

It was the summer of 2014 when Microsoft announced that Cortana, the digital personal assistant that the users of smartphones with the company’s software were using, will be able soon to control home automations, starting from the simpler ones such as controlling the lighting and the environment’s temperature.

Cortana is the Microsoft’s equivalent to Google’s Now and Apple’s Siri. The only difference is that Cortana is so evolved that can recognize the situation in a room and notify the user if they desire or not to make any changes. It wasn’t by accident that Microsoft decided to enter the world of smart homes, devices and appliances so dynamically. The predictions for the smart homes market were estimated at least at 100 billion dollars since 2018. In the United States and the United Kingdom alone, more than 38 millions are invested each year. It is needless to say that the increasing demand for smart home devices holds with it many benefits, some of which we will try to explain.

Smart home devices: an increasing market

The rising demand for smart home appliances concerns almost every smart home appliance category in a house either be it automations (lighting, alarms) or devices for the reproduction of sound and image. According to researchers, the most dynamic part of the smart home appliances market will be the one connected with video entertainment.

This category is estimated to reach approximately 385 million sales, about 43% of the total smart home market. The category of smart speakers is also extremely dynamic while equally dynamic seems to be the Home Monitoring/Security category with 140 million sales and 16.8% of the smart home market. According to analysts’ predictions, even though the smart home appliances will continue to be dominated by two companies, Amazon and Google, Apple is estimated to gain ground the next years. And even though, everyone is talking about Alexa smart home devices, in the years to come we will see many more advances.

Smart home devices: benefits and gains

A smart home can make life easier and more comfortable. Everyone will love to be in a position to control lighting, temperature and entertainment from their couch. Whether you are at work or on vacation, a smart house can notify its owner about what is going on and security systems can be constructed to provide a massive amount of assistance in urgencies.

For instance, in case of a fire at night, not only will the owner will be awaken through a fire alarm but also the doors will be unlocked automatically, the fire department will be called immediately and lights will be on for safety. Smart homes also offer many possibilities concerning energy saving. With technologies such as Z-Wave and ZigBee that put devices into a reduced state and level of functionality, into idle or sleep state and that awake devices when necessary, huge amounts of energy can be saved. Lights can close automatically when someone exits a room and a room can be heated or cooled according to the person that is in it.