Why Are AI-Enabled Smart Home Products the Next Big Thing?

Smart homes offer convenience and improve people’s quality of life, often through a single click, and this is enhanced even more with the adoption of AI.

Smart home products used in the living room, dining room, kitchen, or at the front door can be conveniently controlled by a single device or an app, making them simple and easy for everyone to use.

On the other hand, AI generates value through its human-like ability to analyze and process data, completing the tasks it’s programmed to while learning the patterns of its users. This way, it can predict users’ future decisions and choices (and apply them).

Generally, future smart homes that use AI and Edge AI will be able to operate with minimal human intervention.

This article covers AI’s role and the features and benefits it brings to the smart home.

First, let’s explore why the demand for AI-enabled smart home products is rising.

Why is the market for AI-enabled smart home products growing?

Integrating AI with smart products reflects the current direction of tech giants and key industries, and the smart home market is one area where this new combination is skyrocketing.

According to a recent study, the smart home market is projected to have an annual growth rate of 27.01% and is estimated to reach a value of 537 billion USD by 2030.

As AI continues to expand the capabilities of automation, such as mimicking human decision-making and pre-empting human behavior, it offers enormous benefits for convenience and smart assistance.

1. AI increases smart home security and access control

AI-enabled smart locks and security cameras can help monitor and authorize access only to permitted individuals through advanced biometric authentication methods such as face detection and recognition, retinal scans, fingerprint scans, and others.

This allows smart cameras to identify individuals and grant or deny access accordingly.

Additionally, these AI-enabled systems can actively monitor and evaluate potential security threats, eliminating the need for manual recording and reducing the likelihood of false alarms.

With AI, smart home systems automatically perform their required tasks, notifying the homeowner if any suspicious activities are detected. This allows the homeowner to immediately take any necessary action, increasing the home’s overall safety.

2. AI offers energy-saving benefits for smart homes

One of the key benefits of integrating AI into smart home products stems from its energy-saving abilities. AI can optimize energy consumption and distribution, resulting in significant cost savings for homeowners.

Additionally, AI can learn users’ energy consumption patterns and adjust them accordingly, changing lighting, temperature, and other settings in real-time to optimize energy usage.

Smart home systems using AI can monitor appliances, predict how much energy they will consume, and then adjust their usage so that energy consumption stays within a specified range.

This can be beneficial for reducing energy bills while still maintaining the comfort of living spaces.

Overall, the integration of AI into smart home products is helping homeowners not only save energy but also to increase overall energy efficiency.

3. AI delivers better smart home device functionality and a better user experience

As stated, incorporating AI into smart home products can offer many benefits that can improve device functionality and user experience.

Another benefit is that AI can enable smart home devices to learn and adapt to a user’s habits and preferences.

For example, a smart thermostat can use AI to learn a user’s schedule and adjust the temperature accordingly, making the user’s home more comfortable without changing anything manually.

AI can also enable smart home devices to become more integrated and interconnected. For instance, a smart lighting system can use AI to automatically adjust the lighting throughout an entire home based on the time of day or the user’s activity.

Importantly, AI can enable smart home devices to offer advanced features such as Face Recognition and other sophisticated security options.

Incorporating AI into smart home products can make devices more efficient, convenient, and personalized, leading to a better overall user experience.

Why is Edge AI an excellent fit for the smart home space

By being able to perform computations and data storage on user devices (rather than in a centralized location), Edge AI offers several advantages that make it a good fit for smart home applications.

For instance, Edge AI can be cost-effective, eliminating the need for expensive cloud infrastructure and reducing the costs associated with transmitting data to the cloud.

Additionally, because computations are performed locally, Edge AI is not dependent on internet connectivity which can be beneficial for areas with poor network coverage or during network outages.

Other significant reasons to opt for Edge AI for smart home devices include factors such as:

Edge AI requires less bandwidth

By performing data processing and analysis at the Edge, Edge AI eliminates the need to send raw data to a central location for processing, which can significantly reduce the bandwidth requirements of smart home devices.

This is especially important when bandwidth is limited, such as in remote locations, or when data transmission is expensive, such as when dealing with video footage in Smart Video Doorbell or HomeCam use cases.

Edge AI offers low latency for real-time responses

Edge AI can bring significant benefits regarding low latency and real-time responses in smart home devices.

By performing data processing and analysis at the Edge, Edge AI can provide faster results.

This is particularly valuable in applications where real-time responses, such as emergencies, are critical. For example, Edge AI can quickly recognize and respond to potential threats picked up by a home security system.

Edge AI offers increased data security and privacy

Edge AI offers increased data security and privacy in the smart home by allowing data processing to occur locally rather than in the cloud.

This means that personal data, such as voice commands, sensor readings, and facial characteristics, never leave the device and are not transmitted over the internet to a remote server.

Edge AI devices can also be designed with built-in security measures, such as encryption, to protect personal data further.

This is particularly important in the smart home, where sensitive information, such as when a person is home or away, can be inferred from sensor data.

By processing data locally and implementing security measures, Edge AI can help to mitigate the risk of data breaches and is especially good at protecting the privacy of smart home users.

AI and Edge AI enable smart home products to learn and adapt to user behavior

AI and Edge AI enable smart home products to learn and adapt to user behavior using machine learning algorithms. These algorithms allow smart home products to continuously gather and analyze data on how users interact with specific devices and adjust accordingly.

One of the key benefits of this is that it enables the smart home to become more personalized and efficient.

AI and Edge AI allow smart home products to anticipate user needs and actions. For example, when a user turns off the lights in the living room.

In this case, the smart lighting system can learn this behavior and automatically turn off the lights. This makes the smart home experience more convenient and saves the user time.

Learning user behavior through machine learning algorithms can progress into anomaly detection (by using the data collected to establish a baseline of normal behavior).

Once the baseline is established, any deviation from this expected behavior can be identified as an anomaly.

For example, suppose a smart home security system has learned that the user typically disarms the system when they arrive home at 6:00 PM. If the system detects that the user didn’t disarm the system at the usual time, it can trigger an alert, indicating an anomaly.

Anomaly detection can be used in many areas of the smart home, such as; detecting unusual energy consumption patterns, identifying unusual patterns of motion or temperature changes in the home, and detecting unusual patterns of occupancy.

Moreover, By detecting anomalies, a smart home can proactively address potential issues, such as a gas leak or an attempted break-in, and alert the user to take the appropriate action.

Importantly, smart home manufacturers who offer products that use AI and Edge AI to learn user behavior and detect anomalies will be able to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Their products will appeal to a larger market of consumers looking for that added convenience, personalization, and security in their smart home products.

The future role of AI in the evolution of the smart home

It’s not just about automating tasks or making them more convenient but creating an ecosystem of devices that understand their users, anticipate their needs, and adjust accordingly.

Imagine your customer’s delight in coming home to a perfectly lit and temperature-controlled living room without them ever having to lift a finger. Or having users’ smart security systems detect and alert them to potential security threats, giving them peace of mind when they’re away from home.

With the integration of AI and Edge AI, smart homes can also anticipate and pre-empt users’ actions and make decisions on their behalf.

This will lead to a truly personalized and seamless smart home experience, where the technology fades into the background, and people can simply live their lives.

In short, integrating AI into smart home products is about creating a home that truly understands and adapts to its users, making their lives more comfortable, efficient, and secure.

About the Author

Mark Crosling

Mark Crosling is a marketer, strategist, and writer. Start-ups, early-stage, and thinking about thinking are his thing. He digs category design 'cause that's where the treasure is.

Why Are AI-Enabled Smart Home Products the Next Big Thing?