The article discusses expectations for smart home announcements at the upcoming IFA tech show in Berlin. While companies may unveil new smart speakers, cameras and robot vacuums, the smart home remains fragmented as the Matter interoperability standard has yet to fully deliver on integrating devices. The author argues the industry needs to provide more utility than novelty by allowing different smart devices to work together seamlessly. Examples mentioned include lights notifying users of doorbell activity or a robot vacuum taking on multiple household chores autonomously. Overall, the smart home needs solutions that are essential rather than just novel if consumers are to see the value beyond the initial cool factor.
I want hardware platforms standardized and autodiscoverable. These things need to get updates after the manufacturer ceases to care. Also, these hardware manufacturers can be terrible at software. It should be like PCs. I think that is end point anyway. It’s just unmaintainable any other way, even if these are intended to be e-waste after only a few years.
