Lights that switch themselves on? A fridge that tells you when the milk’s going off? A home security that keeps you safe from burglars and hackers? It’s all coming in the near future, as the Internet of Things (IoT) moves into your home. In fact, a lot of it is here already.
Home Internet solutions are making it easy (and affordable) for connected devices to communicate with each other in real-time. The result is a smart home, where your entertainment, security and energy systems all think for themselves – and all they think about is how to make your life easier.
What We Already Have
You may have seen examples of this already in high-tech office buildings, or in TV shows featuring rich people from the future. Imagine it in your own home: as you walk into your bedroom the lights come on automatically (using sensors to detect that you’ve entered the room), and the aircon adjusts to a temperature that’s just right for you (using machine learning that picks up on your moods and preferences), and with your favourite night-time jams playing on a smart speaker (because your smart home knows you so well, it has the Billy Eilish queued and ready).
Smart homes are being made possible by a handful of developing technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is great at watching, learning and predicting what you’ll do next – as it does when it autocorrects your WhatsApp texts. If you’re an iPhone user you’ll already know how useful Siri can be, and you may have heard of (or used) Amazon’s home smart assistant Alexa or Google’s functionally named Google Assistant. Each of those technologies uses machine learning algorithms to gather data, learn from it, and improve their performance. That’s where the adjusted aircon and the personalised bedroom playlist come into the picture.
What’s Coming Our Way
The next step in the smart home evolution will see those competing brands and different ecosystems starting to speak to each other. For example, you could have Siri (on your iPhone) speaking to Google Assistant (in your Google Nest smart speaker) and recommending songs based on your Spotify activity. The possibilities roll out from there, as your connected TV tells your connected laptop that you’ve been binge-watching MasterChef, your laptop tells your smartphone to create a grocery list based on a meal you’d like to try, and your connected fridge chimes in to adjust your grocery list based on what’s already in your pantry.
Two other technologies feed into this connected home ecosystem. One is Natural Language Processing (NLP), which helps all these smart devices understand and respond to your voice commands in a way that feels like you’re talking to a person and not to a complex system of inanimate, interconnected hardware items (which… you totally are). The other is Computer Vision, a technology that enables smart devices to interpret visual data from connected cameras and sensors.
You know what that means, of course. Yes, your smart home is watching you and making a detailed inventory of your habits and routines. And yes, it’s super creepy if you stop to think about it. But it’s so convenient and so helpful, you won’t mind one bit. Want your IoT to run smoothly? Check out one of Vodacom's Home Internet deals for great LTE, 5G and fibre options.
