You Don't Need What You Don't Know

Author's note: The scope of innovation in this article is limited to 'consumer tech innovation'. Think of private consumers of connected devices and smart home such as Philips Hue (smart lightbulbs), Nest Protect (connected smoke alarm) or Netatmo Coach (indoor climate monitoring) just to mention a few examples.

We Call It Innovation, But...

Most of the consumer tech we know today is in fact not very innovative, which is why we know them. They are typically digitized versions of classic, mechanical products that we have grown up with.

It means that when we see a smart lightbulb, we intuitively put it into the 'lightbulb' category in our mind and label it 'smart'. The same is true for smoke alarms, thermostats, cameras, and so on.

The truly innovative products typically look different and offer unexpected features such as Amazon Alexa (ambient voice activation) and the Anyware Smart Adaptor (room sensor installed in the lamp). The novelty and unique features of these products challenge our mindsets and require an effort to be understood. And most consumers don't bother to 'invest' time and effort into new tech or gadgets. In fact, when it comes to consumer tech adoption, only 18% of consumers are considered 'early adopters' (tech enthusiasts) - the rest of us remains unengaged.

The Reseller Responsibility

And the real damage is done when the professional buyers in retailers, supermarkets, etc., make the simplistic evaluation that new innovative tech requires too much effort to explain to consumers. In other words, simplicity and 'business-as-usual' beat the ambition of inspiring customers, which at the end of the day attracts visitors to the shop and creates returning customers.

Look at the market today: We call it 'innovation' when one B2C company after another race to the bottom with Chinese smartlight offers (colour-controlled bulbs, strips and downlights), many of which are based on the Chinese whitelabel app platform, Tuya.

Why would any tech provider, retailer or reseller join this race? Why not inspire customers with value-added tech offers (they can even look like lightbulbs, while offering superior value and user experience)? The answer seems to be: Because it is relatively easy and cost-effective to source smart lightbulbs in China and create your own app, AND more important, we apparently conclude that it is what customers want, because it is what they are offered on Amazon, MediaMarkt and other regional or local tech webshops. We tend to forget that most of us do not actively seek consumer tech and buy gadgets.

As a consequence, consumer tech innovation bites its own tail, and we all get what the tech enthusiast minority wants, because they do the shopping and represent 'the market' for new tech. That is why we are still only offered new gadgets in retail stores and webshops instead of relevant and meaningful digital services that run in the background and assist our everyday lives.

Lack of Industry Leadership

When an industry have true innovation and vision, it will correct itself like we have seen in the car industry. Consumers did not demand automatic parking sensors or breaking systems, but the industry nonetheless saw the digital potential and pushed ahead.

Think of how your car works today, and imagine that you had to install and calibrate the parking sensors yourself and activate them everytime you wanted to park the car. That's how most consumer tech and smart home solutions are designed today

For consumer tech and smart home, though, we lack clear and visionary leadership today. Google and Amazon joined a closed party (not sure if they invited Apple and Samsung), where they are concerned with tomorrow's consumer tech.

But who leads today's consumer tech? Signify (Philips Hue)? Legrand (Netatmo)? Buddy (LIFX)? Tuya? The answer is no-one, which is a huge opportunity for other stakeholders beyond tech providers.

And the lack of leadership - or maybe rather the lack of interest for incumbents in other consumer verticals such as #telecom #insurance #energy and #realestate to enter consumer tech or smart home - is the reason why we are still seeing a locked consumer tech industry (for more than three decades now) with cheaper and cheaper smartlights as the beacon of innovation.

The good news is that there are plenty of smaller tech companies out there that have created true innovation for consumers and the companies that serve consumers, but these innovators are struggling to get through the 'forces of business-as-usual' and conquer shelf space from the cheap smartlights for reasons explained above.

The Unique Opportunity For New Stakeholders

This is a unique opportunity for other stakeholders in related verticals that serve consumers and enjoy unique access to early majority consumers (which do not formulate consumer tech needs, nor do they visit tech retailers/webshops) to offer innovative and relevant consumer tech and smart home services.

If you are not invited to the closed party of Google and Amazon with free drinks to all the early adopters and tech enthusiasts, it is still not too late to make your own party for the majority customers - but make sure to arrange for a large party!

Happy New Year and be careful what you wish for in 2022 - it may not be what you need!

PS For the record: Someone did innovate the lightbulb and made it do much more than lighting => Check out Anyware Solutions.