Smartphone ≠ smart home
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Smartphone ≠ smart home
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Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home
#2"We believe that the future of smart homes will not be found in a centralized device but in an integrated combination of screens, speech recognition, sensors, dedicated devices and smart surfaces."
I think the latter part of the sentence unintentionally describes smartphones. I would say that today's smartphones are integrated combination of screens, speech recognition, sensors, dedicated devices and smart surfaces. Pretty damn good as well.
I take issue with the first part of the sentence as well. I think we do want a centralized device with centralized software. People are sick of fridge operating one way and stoves working another. Take changing clocks on microwave, coffee machine, fridge, stoves etc for example. Don't you just hate doing it one by one? Not to mention the fact that they all have different interfaces and work differently.
Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home
#3Well, sure, bad interfaces to 'smart home' devices will be unpleasant to use. But most things like Wemo, Hue, etc. still let you hit their wall switch. Their 'smartness' is additive, if you have a screen to control them with.
Clearly the reason many connected devices expect you to bring your own screen is cost - Nest notwithstanding, adding touchscreens to everything when you've already got one in your pocket seems unnecessary, and would clearly add to price of these products.
Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home
#4What I am missing with all the smart home thing and only the Nest has done right is, that the smartphone is a personal thing. But switch on a light or similar is not a personal thing, if you are living with a family with kids. In particular if you have smaller kids, which don't have a small device and must be able to switch on the light or similar.
There are so much levels in terms of a smart home, that a smartphone will never be able to handle, because the later one is only a personal thing.
Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home
#5I agree with the author's thesis, that smartphones, as generic information processing tools, offer poor user interfaces for controlling things in our physical environment.
Now, the cost and effort to manufacture hardware is dropping and we have the ability to create interfaces that are not designed as a generic device but designed for a specific person or situation.
This feels very true. The music industry has been taking advantage of this for a while, with all kinds of interesting and innovative tactile controllers interacting with music making software. In that domain companies like Native Instruments are addressing exactly the concerns raised by this article. (Interestingly, the author cites playing music as an example of how an appropriately-crafted physical device (i.e. an instrument) lets the operator focus entirely on the task by minimizing cognitive load.)
Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home
#6"We believe that the future of smart homes will not be found in a centralized device but in an integrated combination of screens, speech recognition, sensors, dedicated devices and smart surfaces." I think the latter part of the sentence unintentionally describes smartphones. I would say that today's smartphones are integrated combination of screens, speech recognition, sensors, dedicated devices and smart surfaces.…
Hey, one of the founders here. When we talk about integrated, we're talking about sensors integrated in the materials like tables and walls around us. It does not mean that all of these components should be integrated in one device. I did not phrase this well enough. Thanks!
I agree that we want a centralized intelligence. I personally don't want to carry my smartphone around all the time though. We can't we use what's around us like glass, tables walls or use small projectors that track your positioning?
Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home
#7"We believe that the future of smart homes will not be found in a centralized device but in an integrated combination of screens, speech recognition, sensors, dedicated devices and smart surfaces." I think the latter part of the sentence unintentionally describes smartphones. I would say that today's smartphones are integrated combination of screens, speech recognition, sensors, dedicated devices and smart surfaces.…
I'm a little torn on this article, and even on your comment. I think the clock example you pick out is important.
However, if your clocks in all your devices are already connected via a centralized mechanism (say, for example, a standardized home automation bus/wiring/backbone), why is it necessary to set the clocks at all? One way or another, they could be connected to a time server. I don't (shouldn't) need an app to set time on any device.
If you're talking interface unification on each device (say, a touchscreen "standard" interface and OS), that is ... maybe desirable, but potentially impractical or unlikely. With eventual interfaces (to say, fridges or stoves or whatever) being "smart", it's going to become a key differentiator among brands, along with reliability, warranty, ease to clean, energy efficiency. So I could see the manufacturers pushing back on that.
Weighing in with my own anecdote, I have a Nest thermostat in my home. There's an iPad app which I have never used (other than to test) once to adjust the temperature in my home. I walk to the device and do it there. It's faster and easier. And the author of the article addresses this issue.
Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home
#8You didn't mention the smartwatch at all in your essay. As someone living with one (a pebble) daily for the past year, many of the smarthome needs have been extending into working with the smartwatch, and they don't have the painpoints you describe.
Just as an example - for changing volume on my pebble, i do this:
1) long-hold the up-button (i have this binded to an app called 'music boss' )
2) hit up or down.
3) volume changes.
There's similar apps for controlling smart lightbulbs, etc, and pretty much expect this to be standard case on android wear / apple watch / microsoft band / etc. in the coming months.
Is there a "multi-user" factor missing that makes a case for products like Senic Flow? Yes, but that wasn't addressed in the essay.
Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home
#9Well, sure, bad interfaces to 'smart home' devices will be unpleasant to use. But most things like Wemo, Hue, etc. still let you hit their wall switch. Their 'smartness' is additive, if you have a screen to control them with. Clearly the reason many connected devices expect you to bring your own screen is cost - Nest notwithstanding, adding touchscreens to everything when you've already got one in your pocket seems u…
I agree. And that's exactly one of the big changes that are happening. Prices for hardware components and manufacturing are dropping and we now have the ability to think about more suitable interfaces. I stopped using my lifx after a week because I did not have a fast and simple interface to control them.
Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home
#10You didn't mention the smartwatch at all in your essay. As someone living with one (a pebble) daily for the past year, many of the smarthome needs have been extending into working with the smartwatch, and they don't have the painpoints you describe. Just as an example - for changing volume on my pebble, i do this: 1) long-hold the up-button (i have this binded to an app called 'music boss' ) 2) hit up or down. 3) vol…
You're right. I'm going to talk about them in particular in a follow up post. I wear a pebble as well and I used to use it to control volume. I see smartwatches taking a big place in smart homes. Our issues were that they were not a shared control, you still had to use vision as your primary sensor input, battery life, screen size and problems with connectivity. But I'm confident some of these issues will be resolved soon.