Have you heard some of the myths and misinformation being spread about home automation in 2012?
This blog post takes a look at the top ‘4.5’ myths that are doing the rounds in 2012.
1. INCORPORATING A FULL SMART HOME SYSTEM INTO A HOUSE REQUIRES A SIGNIFICANT UPFRONT INVESTMENT!
There is a perception out there that ‘fancy’ smart home automation systems cost a fortune, where in reality these systems are very affordable and can in fact save you money.
Furthermore, most Smart Home Automation products do not require professional installation.
Low-cost products based on mature technologies such as Z-Wave, Zigbee, INSTEON, and Wi-Fi have eliminated the pre-requisite of re-wiring a house to install an automation system.
Once installed and configured a Home Automation 2.0 system helps you to save on your monthly electricity, gas, and water bills!
2. SMARTHOME AUTOMATION PRODUCTS ARE DIFFICULT TO USE
It is true to say that many smart home automation products released in the early years were buggy, technically complex, and required an IT savvy person to run on a daily basis.
The truth nowadays is that most if not all smart home automation products provide easy control of all your lights, heating, security, and entertainment systems via a tablet, SmartPhone, or PC.
3. SMART HOUSE AUTOMATION IS CONFINED TO THE WEALTHY AND AFFLUENT IN SOCIETY
It is embellished in most people’s minds that smart house automation is not affordable and only available to ‘rich’ people in our society. The truth is that major service providers are reselling affordable smart house control and alarm subscription products to their existing base of customers.
So smart home automation is in fact becoming a mainstream solution and no longer is home automation confined to the privileged in society!
4. LACK OF SMART HOME AUTOMATION STANDARDS
Pundits have said for many years that the creation of a widely accepted standard would drive the adoption of home automation products.
Since the mid-eighties; there have been various attempts to create a standard that would enable thermostats, IP cameras, security sensors, light switches, and various other home automation products to interoperate with each other.
Despite these efforts, many of these initiatives failed to produce a single standard that could spawn ubiquitous uptake by the general population of home automation solutions.
It’s not all doom and gloom, however, and rather than having a single global standard for home automation; we in fact have at least 5! – Z-Wave, Zigbee, INSTEON, WiFi and KNX.
Each of these standards has its own ecosystem of devices that allow smart home control systems such as lighting, entertainment, heating, security, and cameras to inter-operate with each other.
Although not ideal, all of the above technologies continue to enjoy strong growth rates at the moment and this expected to continue over the next 5 to 10 years.
5. SMART HOME AUTOMATION IS A SOLUTION LOOKING FOR A PROBLEM.
It is true today that the initial iteration of home automation available to consumers in the nineties and noughties were often installed as a nice to have but did ‘Not Solve’ any specific problem.
Not so anymore; people are using Next-Generation Smart House products to solve two specific real-life problems:
- Reducing their monthly electricity, heating, and cooling bills.
- Improving security levels of their family homes.
Is smart home automation perfect? Of course not – but it’s transformative in ways that we manage our homes. Although myths will always be with us, I fail to see the downside of Home Automation if it helps to cut my monthly bills and helps to make my family more secure.