Smart Home is the Answer to the Wrong Question

And it has been so for more than three decades!

When will we acknowledge that we don't need more technology to engage homeowners with Smart Home, but rather less technology?

Homeowners and consumers remain unengaged and don't see technology as the answer to everyday problems.

The right question may be:

"How do we deliver digital solutions to existing everyday problems or manual routines for users of homes (not the home itself)?"

If this is indeed the question, what is then the answer?

To this author and industry innovator, the answer is: Value-added Services.

Digitization is by definition ADDED value - most of the digital services today, certainly for the Smart Home, can be manually performed and have been so for decades and even centuries. Consequently, when the industry try to create NEW value with digital products, it ends up appealing only to the 1 in 5 early technology adopters in today's market.

When we start focusing on digital Value-added Services to everyday routines, it forces us to relate to the core value delivered - i.e. to what is the digital product or service an added value?

It could be management and optimization (added value) to the electricity bill (core value) or remote monitoring and frost alerts (added value) to the holiday home (core value).

This thinking is crucial for the Smart Home solution design in engaging the mass market homeowner (the 4 in 5 homeowners) who is not buying Smart Home as the primary and core value.

Add to this, that the Value-added Service perspective provides the building blocks for the Go-To-Market model.

Energy management and optimization should be offered as a Value-added Service by energy providers and utilties. One might argue that some already do that today, but not with the vision or context of a 'Smart Home'. Remote monitoring and frost alerts should be offered as a Value-added Service by insurers to owners of a holiday home, and so forth.

So why is this not happening already? To get the answer to that question, an effort will be required by you: You have to send an email to [email protected], and I will revert to you shortly (please title the email "Why is this not happening today").

I encorage you to also register here for further updates and news.

If you are more interested in the implied question to the answer in the title of this article, please do not hesitate to write your question as a comment below:

If Smart Home is the answer, what is then the question?