What is known as smart home, or smart home, represented in 2020 a global market of more than 86.48 billion dollars (MMUSD) worldwide. The market is expected to continue to grow and exceed $400 million by the end of the decade. Many things in our homes will include technology of various kinds, in response to various changes that are happening at the same time.
There are more and more Internet users, but not only that: they also use it longer and more frequently. According to INEGI, in 2020, 72% of the Mexican population used the internet while 60.6% of households had access to the network. Along with the above, and despite the crises, there is some increase in disposable income for this expenditure in economies like ours. Additionally, due to various circumstances, for security or simply for convenience, many households seek to monitor what happens when they leave their house, installing cameras and alarms, among other devices.
We know of the conscious desire of consumers to save energy. Thus, equipment such as refrigerators, heaters and others are increasingly efficient and connect to the Internet, interacting with their user and in many cases with the manufacturer. Examples range from controlling temperature or lighting to identifying missing products in the refrigerator or their maintenance requirements. Much of the above has to do with the Internet of Things or Internet of Things (IoT) in English.
A product that has been introduced in the home in recent years is the well-known “voice assistant”. Examples of this are Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Samsung’s Bixby. Almost all the smartphones include some of these, so chances are we’ve run into it. Unfortunately, consumers are constantly looking for what else can be done with these assistants, since the most continuous use that is given to them is to listen to music and ask for the weather: this is equivalent to just over 50% of their use. This lack of understanding is due to the fact that it is still necessary to adequately communicate the value that it represents for the consumer to acquire the additional devices so that the house is automated, in addition to connecting them to each other.
The market for these devices is anticipated to grow tremendously in the future. We can segment the market into monitoring and security (alarms, cameras), smart lighting (on, off, graduation), entertainment (smart televisions, speakers) and smart equipment (refrigerators, closets) among others, such as energy consumption meters and Water. All this will be interconnected through the internet, and controlled directly by the user through his smartphone.
There is still a long way to go from a marketing perspective. However, adequately communicating the value that each device offers to the consumer user is something that needs to be improved. The IoT brings a lot of value that the consumer has yet to discover, but it is the responsibility of marketers to make sure that value is transmitted correctly to be appreciated. In the next decade we will enjoy as a daily thing what we have seen so far in futuristic films. There is a long way to go, although the future is already here.