Smart homes inventions set to make hi-tech life a lot more luxe

Anyone who worries that the machines are taking over might not be reassured by the spate of product launches over the last year. There’s Amazon’s Echo: Alexa and the Google Home Hub, August’s lock and Emerson Sensi’s thermostat, Sleep Number’s It bed and Kuna Toucan’s camera, Lifx’s colour-changing bulbs and WeMo’s slow cooker. They’re all “smart”.

They talk to the internet. Even fridges are at it. LG’s latest, launched this month, not only allows you to use touchscreen or an app to see – via panoramic camera – what’s inside your fridge, but will also warn you if products are near their expiry date. It will remind you of birthdays and anniversaries. It has voice recognition. The dream of every technophile will be realised: at last they will even be able to talk to a kitchen appliance.

The connected life – via the internet of things – has long been promised: a world in which all our devices work together to streamline hectic personal, family and working lives, and much more. “But now we are at a tipping point,” says Lionel Guicherd-Callin, European head of product management for Nest, a market leader in connected thermostats and security devices.

“There are more efficient ways to get these kinds of products into the home now, and the products are that much better too. If you look at the time it took tablets to become widespread, uptake for connected devices for the home is very good.”

Indeed, according to one, perhaps overexcited study of the North American market, by software developers Icontrol, over half of those surveyed planned to buy at least one new connected device over the coming 12 months.

Tech market research company Gartner goes further. It predicts that within five years the average home could contain a staggering 500 smart devices. But, while advances the likes of 5G – predicted to offer a 100-fold throughput over 4G – will technically make a connected life possible, further changes in the smart tech industry will be necessary first.

As Guicherd-Callin insists, beyond those tech-savvy kinds, most consumers remain both confused by what the market has to offer, and a little suspicious of the supposed appeal of “a Jetsons house, the idea of which can feel a little gimmicky”.

Rather, he predicts, take up is likely to be slow, steady but incremental – only as each system proves its benefits, and often only as each home appliance becomes ready for replacement; this, for many such appliances, being on closer to a 10 year cycle rather than at the rapid rate with which, for example, we upgrade our cellphones. “It’s very easy for the tech industry to get carried away with the tech,” he notes. “If a device is linked to your smartphone, the first question can’t be whether it’s compatible with Apple or Android, for example.”