The Era Of Home Automation is Coming
Charlie Chaplin in “Modern Times”
The Era Of Home Automation is coming and we are here to keep you informed about it.
The Era of Home Automation and Internet Of Things(IoT) is still on its way. Since decades. You may ask yourself why it takes so long. Mainly due to the following reasons.
The first is price.
At the moment most of the devices in the market are expensive. Only early adopters are willing to give 600 euros for a smart fuse that can be controlled remotely.
Second is ease of use.
It is still the case that you either have to be electrical engineer or software engineer or both to set up your devices. Either you have the knowledge or you pay 40-100 euros per hour for someone to connect the devices for you. If you have a control center from where you can control all of your devices then this one has to be configured to communicate with them too. That is not exactly the thing that will attract a mass consumer.
Third is monthly costs.
One of the catch phrases that come with home automation is decreasing your monthly bill for electricity. What you will not see in the advertisements, but inevitably will experience is the fact that most of these devices consume also electricity. The one that use the electrical wires for communication are said to consume negligible amount of electricity, but the ones that are radio controller, like a wifi device, need a bit more electricity and if you have ten or twenty of those devices then you are waiting for a small surprise.
In the monthly costs we have to include also the support contracts or the money that you have to pay if you want to adjust the settings of your devices. Due to reasons explained in the lack of “ease of use” you should call a qualified worker to reprogram or reconnect the devices for you.
Fourth is security.
If your device is easy to use then most certainly it fells into the category “insecure”. Because one way to make the devices more easy to use from the start is to have same default configuration for all of them. And this means the same configuration for all produced devices from this brand and this type. One may say: “Wait, did you say that my root password which is 12345 is the same for all webcams from the same brand?”. Exactly, you got it. And there are even websites that help you discover devices like your one that are waiting to be hacked without their owner having a single clue what is happening. And it means that if you use your wifi camera to monitor your house then a lot of hackers can potentially spy on you using that same camera. So suddenly your devices turn into your enemies if their security is weak.
These are probably the most important challenges that have to be solved for mass adoption of IoT. But things are changing and we think that the Era of Home Automation is going to arrive sooner than most of the pessimists predicted. And that is because all of the major challenges are tackled and we see progress initiated from hardware and software enthusiasts which try to improve what the electrical and hardware engineers created so far.
And the goal of this blog is to keep you informed and consulted about the changes that are happening and how you can be in the lead of adopters without spending a fortune or feel a bit spooky at home.