Smart homes are a key focus at CES 2020, the world’s largest technology event, January 7-10 in Las Vegas. The giant show features more than 170,000 attendees, 4,500 exhibitors and 1,100 industry thought-leaders featured on the CES stage. A range of technologies will be on display, from artificial intelligence (AI) to 5G, vehicle technology to AR/VR (augmented and virtual reality), robotics to home automation.
smart home environment
The role of intelligent HVAC systems in the smart home will be featured at the show, and the impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) on HVAC systems (among other technologies) will be prominent. HVAC is an element that provides measurable value in the smart home environment. The Nest intelligent thermostat is almost a decade old. In the years since its introduction, HVAC has become even more intrinsically integrated into the intelligent home.
“Market players are looking to expand beyond established smart home devices like smart thermostats and networked cameras to products like smart water leak detectors, smart pet feeders, and smart air purifiers,” says Elizabeth Parks, President, Parks Associates.
Electronic door lock approach
The Resideo T-Series smart thermostats support wireless Smart Room Sensors
“For the smart home market at CES this year, we expect to see numerous announcements regarding home awareness,” says Blake Kozak, Senior Principal Analyst at IHS Markit. “The impact of this [event] for the smart home could be about delivering home analytics and enhancing privacy through cloudless architectures and new electronic door lock approaches,” he adds.
An example of home analytics is the Resideo Home app, introduced in December, which will make whole-home monitoring possible for four critical networks of the home – water, air, energy and security. Resideo promises a “simplified and integrated smart home experience.” The Resideo T-Series smart thermostats support wireless Smart Room Sensors to balance and prioritize temperatures in the home.
air management controller
Daikin North America will be showing the Daikin One+ smart thermostat, an intelligent home air management controller. Beyond a typical smart thermostat, it is a controller for a full professional HVAC system with a growing ecosystem of air quality modules to give consumers more control over the air they breathe and a premium HVAC experience.
OxiCool is launching HomeCool, a clean and resilient AC technology. It is designed to provide clean and silent air-conditioning for the home. The product can be configured to operate off solar thermal, natural gas, propane or electricity. It uses no harmful refrigerant and only four natural elements—earth, water, fire and air. The clean technology uses molecular sieves in vacuum-sealed units made from stainless steel and uses zero GWP water as its refrigerant.
unified solution to consumers
“Consumers who already own smart home products are buying more devices,” says Parks. “A key issue to address though is the lack of purchases occurring with the non-owners of these devices. Despite purchase intentions being high, consumers are not making the purchase to move adoption of products. After 10 years of being in the market, smart thermostats still only have about 11-13% adoption rate in the U.S."
"In 2020, we will see companies working to provide a unified solution to consumers through professional installation and also continue to see the single-point solution pushed to get consumers in the door with a single product and expand from there.”