Forget about the 4D TVs, the driverless cars and all the rest of the hype that are usually the stars of the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES). This time it was all about home.
At this year’s show, held last month in Las Vegas, every tech company worth its weight in silicon was talking about the smart home and how they had the solution that was going to be “the” solution.
And while it was hard to figure out who was who and what was what, the fact of the matter is that one of those companies is probably right and it will have the platform that will define the plugged-in home for years to come.
First things first: it seemed like hardly anybody was still using the term “internet of things” … which is a good thing. Among the many wonderful inventions the tech industry has come up with, this is certainly not one of them.
It was all about the smart home…and voice activation. And on that front, someone named Alexa was clearly the star. The home assistant from Amazon was the first to market through the company’s Echo devices and it (she?) has a huge head start over the similar Google Assistant and the as-yet-out-of-the-gate Home Pod from Apple, which is not even hitting the market until this month.
By one estimate there are now more than 4,000 smart home devices from more than 1,200 companies that can be controlled through Alexa. Many of these revolve around entertainment, notably music and TV, but closer to the home furnishings business, they also are being integrated into lighting, home security and temperature control devices.
Any earlier suggestions that free-standing home products would be the central element of the smart home seem to be passing quickly as technology like Alexa gains market share.
And while home devices from washing machines to coffee makers can be part of the smart home, it appears that lighting will be a critical part of the product mix going forward, which remains encouraging news for the industry’s suppliers and retailers.
For more business information like this, be sure to subscribe to Dallas Market Center’s monthly Light Source e-newsletter.