Is it finally time for the “smart home” to become real — again?

Over the years, we’ve heard many times that smart homes and automation are now a reality; could it finally be true?

I recently saw a story in The Wall Street Journal, “It’s Finally Time to Add Some Smart Tech to Your Dumb Home” making the case that smart lights, locks, and thermostats are ready for prime time. This is due to a new era of cooperation among tech companies bolstered by software interoperability standards and apps such as “matter” and “rust” (personal comment: those are dreadful names in so many ways, no matter how cute or clever their proponents think they are!).

Seeing this story, I had a feeling of déjà vu. This type of home automation story reappears every five years or so. Of course, someday it may be true…and perhaps this time, it actually is the case.

The smart-home story and promises of home automation are not new at all. If you go back about 50 years, one of the first such efforts was the BSR X-10 (1975), later designated simply as X-10. The early versions used the home AC line for connectivity and were limited in capabilities, primarily used for turning on/off lights and similar, Figure 1. Control of battery-powered, unplugged devices was not an option.

Figure 1. The 50-year-old X-10 system initially provided basic home automation functionality only via the AC line. (Image: www.x10.com)

Further, the AC line as a network medium was not very reliable. The X-10 family soon added a wireless option, but that, too, was relatively costly and limited. Though it’s hard to believe, the X-10 is still around with some vendors and users hanging in there, Figure 2, and newer versions even support more modern standards such as Zigbee.

Figure 2. X-10 controllers and devices are still available, along with upgrades supporting various wired and wireless connectivity standards. (Image: www.x10.com)

Newer generations of smart-home controllers and devices emerged after X-10, some based on open standards and others on proprietary ones, with each claiming to be the gateway solution to the smart-home problem. Some “piggybacked” on computer-centric higher-speed network connections (such as Wi-Fi) while others were optimized for, and limited to, a slower speed fully suitable for the smart-home needs.

Where things stand
The good news is that connectivity has gotten better and less expensive, as have the smart devices they control, while the requisite software apps and drivers needed to tie these all together and create a working system have also improved.

But our expectations have also grown. It’s no longer enough to just turn lights on and off remotely; we now expect to do much more: motorized window drapes, control of the home heating and cooling, sensing of leaks and water issues, smart locks, cameras, and security systems, and more – and all with smart-phone monitoring and control.

I won’t get into the technical details of the smart home and home automation, as anyone reading this column either knows it or can do their own research. I do wonder about the actual size of the smart-home market despite the repeated cycles of “its time is now” hype. The electronics industry – IC vendors, connectivity-box suppliers, and software developers – are salivating at the concept and pushing the “you just gotta have it” mindset. They imply that if you don’t go “smart home,” it would be like not having electricity, running water, and indoor plumbing in your house.

Ummm…. no. Yes, it’s a boon for those with limited mobility, and it will give techno-geeks another hobby to keep them busy and boast about — and I have no problem with that. But for the rest of us, I see multiple issues with the smart home:

First, the up-front cost, even though these costs have come down.

Second, the hassles of getting it all installed and working. Sure, Matter is supposed to make it easy, but I’ve heard that plug-and-play/interoperability/”this time it’s different” story many times before, and I am very skeptical.

Then, there is the issue of keeping it all running. All it will take is for one vendor to mess up, and their box/node won’t work and may even crash the entire set-up.

Vendors go out of business, and even those in business will be unlikely to provide adequate support for millions of home users with their diverse setups of hardware and software; no two will be alike, and each will have its own idiosyncrasies. Perhaps every homeowner will need a “digital twin” file for their service person (Figure 3) in addition to plumbing and electrical schematic drawings and architectural plans (and who is responsible for updating it and revision control)?

Figure 3. “Digital twin” file diagram. (Image: Researchgate).

Despite what Matter and others promise, vendors will undoubtedly issue incompatible upgrades or stop supporting some pieces of hardware, so you’re out of luck.

What happens when power fails, or connectivity is spotty? Will you have to turn the lights on/off manually? (Oh, the horrors…)

It seems to me that the smart home will spur the need for an initial house call by an IT tech who will set it all up and then keep it running, perhaps with weekly or monthly maintenance checks. That’s a lot of bucks to shell out when all you wanted to do was check the house status remotely or perform a similar modest task.

Then, there’s the reality of product life cycles. A consumer product such as a smartphone has a life of perhaps three to five years, and then it either fails or is obsoleted by the newer, flashier model. We may not like that, but that is the reality for most users. In contrast, cars have a lifetime of ten to twenty years (the average car in the US is 11 years old, and the trend is toward even longer lifetimes due to both improved reliability and the skyrocketing cost of new cars). But houses have a lifecycle measured in decades, with typical upgrade and renovation periods of twenty and thirty years, and sometimes longer periods.

Pain versus gain
Perhaps I’m jaded or cynical, but when I see some whiz-bang technical advance presented as a major time/labor-saving solution or as a must-have, I ask two basic questions:

1) Does this presumed solution solve a problem that I actually have in the first place?

2) if it does, is the solution bigger than the problem it purports to solve? In other words, is the pain worth the gain? Is it worth the initial hassle of getting it set up, as well as the longer-term burden it adds to my life?

Will the smart home finally catch on and become mainstream? I have no idea, although my gut says “unlikely, except for a small niche.” But I am also humble here, as I know that many of my previous predictions were flat-out wrong, such as: 1) we didn’t need this thing called “USB ports” as we already had enough good interface-port standards; 2) the spin-out of Agilent (now Keysight) from Hewlett-Packard would not do well on its own; and 3) Apple shouldn’t get into wireless and phones but should simply stick to PCs, as the technical challenges of integrating analog and RF, plus the regulatory strictures on wireless, were too severe.

I suspect most people want to keep it simple in their homes and are already burdened with must-do maintenance. Once you get past the “wow” factor, the virtues of the smart home are just not there when compared to the upfront cost and headaches along with the longer-term “keep it all running” issues it will inevitably bring.

So… check back with me in five, then ten years, and we’ll see how it all turned out.