Internet of Things Consortium (IoTC) today announced new research that indicates that nearly 65% of American consumers are moderately or extremely interested in adopting a smart home solution, and 71% of those consumers make smart home purchases based on word-of-mouth referrals by friends and family or recommendations made in-store by employees.
Anyone in the connected home market would be happy to hear that the sector is predicted to reach revenue of $101 billion in 2013, this is according to Visiongain’s latest report: Global Connected Home Market 2013-2018: Smart Appliances, DLNA & 3-Screen Strategy. The growing demand for smart devices in the home and to hav them all connected has created a new revenue streams for operators, digital content providers and OEMs.
Texas based Ube has released a new iPhone and Android app that can control over 200 IP based smart home appliances. The new app according to Ube will supplement and in some case replace the other control devices, such as smart TVs, set top boxes, AV receivers, DVD players, thermostats, garage door openers and more.
This week Entropic Communications celebrated shipping more than 50 million MoCA 1.0/1.1 Silicon Solutions over the last four years. Entropic attributes the milestone to the growing digital home market, where we are not content to just having one room in our home with internet access but all rooms and the growing list of connected home appliances. There is also a grow list of companies that are moving into the connected home market offering solutions such as home automation, security, control and entertainment.
Tendril and Whirlpool have announced that they are going to collaborate on the development of a range of smart home appliances capable of interacting with the Smart Grid, like the LG Electronics THINQ range. Whirlpool will integrate Tendril’s energy platform into the Whirlpool range of home appliances for the American market. Both companies are at this year’s DistribuTECH showing prototypes of these products.
A CES this month LG demonstrated its THINQ Line of smart home appliances; they are smart grid aware, offer smart diagnosis, food management, smart access and smart adapt. The LG THINQ range which includes refrigerators, ovens, washing machines and robotic vacuum cleaners allow homeowners to manage them through a smart Network. They also help users to make smart decisions about energy use when they to use these THINQ appliances.
LG Electronics has big things in store for the connected home category at this year’s consumer electronics show. The company is planning to change to way we interact with our home appliances; these include clothes dryers, washing machines, microwaves, entertainment systems and refrigerators. These systems according to the Korean times will be web-enabled to interact with us through our home network and has the ability to self-diagnose malfunctions and flaws.
The connected home has a new entrant that promises a new approach to communicating with all the appliances in your home – from your Microwave to your refrigerator, any thing with a computer inside it. The Fugoo team hope to start shipping the Fugoo device this summer, for a retail price of $99.