Smart Home Owners Challenges & Choices

As a start i would like to introduce myself as a CEO of a company titled HOS Smart Home (HOS refers to House Operating System) specialized in providing solutions for all control systems on Personal Intelligent Devices (iPhone, iPad, appleTV and apple watch) Mainly Handheld Devices.

The Problem Was Always There: 

There are many protocols and different systems for control devices communication, you might heard about BACnet, KNX, but there are more regarding automation, a very famous one is digitalSTROM which is used widely in Europe Because it uses only 220/50Hz (uses AC power lines to communicate with smart home devices), On the other hand In America there is Insteon and for most other regions the ZigBee Protocol provide a wireless solutions for all countries worldwide, Other than this there are some specialized devices uses several networking protocols to communicate with each others Like SONOS (Sound Technology), IRtrans (Infra-Red Remote Control Solutions).

Some uses Radio frequencies wireless communication Like enOcean (self-Powered Control), Dali (Lighting Control).

More Issues To Solve:

The most important issue is the User Interface which i regret that most of the smart home software solutions was so complicated for the average house owner or user which introduced a new over headache tasks for the engineers to build the interface according to the customer desire using another complicated software same thing is happening those days in BMS engineering.

while the whole world are aiming to the visual interfaces (VR & AR) still no software solution serves that issue for the most desired market with the most potential growth that would be in every house within next two years and should be serving the user as easily as using your conventional TV Remote Control. 

Smart Home Market Share 2016 till 2022 in UK

Partial Solutions For Big Associations:

Many firms find it very profitable to enter the smart home market as a way for solving the solution by introducing an umbrella to invite all control devices to work under their protocol, among those was Apple HomeKit, Intel IOT (internet of things), Samsung SmartThings, Google Home, Nest , and Amazon Alexa, After all it ended up like it was a good way to sell more of their own products by inviting the already running control systems companies to regulate their own products to be compatible with the new umbrella, Actually this works good for their firms and many companies adapted their products to be compatible with Apple HomeKit, IOT, Google Home and Nest, One of the very famous was Philipps Hue, Honeywell Lyric, Even this invited other companies to emerge under this umbrellas by making products only works with specified umbrella. 

Online Solution Emerge:

One of the fine solutions was introduced by IFTTT (IFTTT referee to If This Then That) , a company providing web solution to link most protocols together online, for instance you can make IFTTT Tweet you or email you when some one ring your smart doorbell.

Smart Home Smart Move

Some companies related to HVAC or BMS control systems have found themselves smart enough to have a market share out of this big potential industry, it is very profitable to introduce home automation devices and solutions to their product lines as a smart home by adding KNX, enOcean and Dali Protocols automation, which merging the room automation to the HVAC controls was mainly BACnet, Famous name for this was Sauter, Honeywell, Schneider, and many more.

So Did It Work?

In my idea this partial solutions actually ended up with messing up the market more and increasing the problem by adding more different protocols which make it very hard now a days for the simple house owner to choose which smart home device he would choose and which is compatible or not compatible with each other etc.

The Ultimate Solution:

Guided with the history we found many problem like this human managed to solve before it really gets bigger.

lets take an Example: Referring to SPDIF its a unified term for the digital sound protocol, With the very early suggestions of a digital sound solutions and protocols Two Japanese companies have gathered with many others to make SPDIF and it refers to SONY PANASONIC DIGITAL INTERFACE FORMAT and they name it according to the pioneers which is Sony and Panasonic, Actually until now it is the standard digital audio protocol that every body follows when they need high fidelity digital sound. 

So why not making this also for the smart home? 

Is it very hard to gather all companies or most of them on a single protocol?

A Software Solution:

HOS Smart Home Company was introduced mainly to solve this problem putting every smart home and automation control between the hands of the average house owner, Literally in his handheld devices (phone, watch, etc.), HOS also provides a very user friendly interface, as this would make it easy for the house owner to build his own visual interface to his house using his phone camera and voice commands even go farther to make a mini BMS control for BACnet and KNX devices built by the user himself.

So far HOS have succeeded to integrate almost 90% of the most common smart home and/or control systems and/or devices into one app for iOS TVOS and Apple Watch, it covers Apple HomeKit, digitalSTROM, BACnet, KNX, SONOS, enOcean, IRtrans, IFTTT, CCTV, IPCAMs. and still more to add in the future relaying on HOS R&D guys.

SmartHome Global Standardization:

As far as i can see there is no hardware solution until all companies get themselves together on one big negotiation table figuring a hardware solution that fits most users demands, ended this negotiations with a Plans To Do Tasks with the most important task is Providing, and Fnancing an Association for the new Unified Smart Home system, protocol and Standards. This association would give training, support, and certifications as needed which will be an obligation to every Smart home Device Producer to follow these standards.

One of the very good examples here in HVAC BMS is ASHRAE standards which is a major asset when installing any BMS control system worldwide and is demanded by many customers even restricted to void in many countries.

Conclusion:

As for myself i’m trying on the software side as well as the standardization side, still facing some difficulties but still i'm trying tempting big companies to gave up some fast cash profits for the sake of the long-term profits, as this market is so potential and i'm afraid we are loosing most of the users interest which will effect this market eventually or even damage it.

Best Regards

Ahmed El-Bermawy