ESSENTIAL AUTOMATION PLATFORMS
THE PROFESSIONALS Mark Reynolds, Vice President & General Manager EMEA at Snap One examines how the DIY market has impacted on the professional CI sector. The rise in DIY technology has seen more and more consumers consider adding smart devices to their home to make life easier, safer, or more convenient. Clearly, this is the biggest automation trend in recent times and presents a huge opportunity for our market. After all, there’s a huge difference between buying a bunch of retail smart gadgets versus using a professionally installed, fully integrated smart home automation system, like Control4. Helping consumers understand and recognise how we can improve upon DIY solutions provides a huge platform for our industry to communicate and help consumers realise the full potential of what a professional automation solution can bring. So, what are the areas where a professional automation solution can make the biggest advances over a DIY solution? The size and complexity of the home is a big consideration in any project. The larger the property, and the more varied the building materials in use such as stone floors and concrete walls, then the less practical it is to scale a collection of smart devices for the home to operate in the same way as a fully designed system. ‘App acne’ and the use of multiple
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remotes also become more and more of an issue as a greater number of smart devices are added and demand to be individually controlled. In turn, more devices increase the stress on the Wi-Fi infrastructure to deliver reliable product connectivity and performance, without any buffering, lagging or drop-out issues. We’re also seeing privacy and security concerns with DIY solutions on the market. When working with a professional, consumers can be sure that their network is secure, all smart home components are up-to-date and configured to minimise any security gaps.
PERSONALISED EXPERIENCES Increasingly, we are looking past the basic device control and universal remote functionality found in DIY smart homes to take the consumer’s experience forward and offer even greater, more compelling points of difference. Not only are we building out additional features to provide more and more personalised automated experiences, but also creating the features and functions that will come to define the next generation of ‘Smart’.
The DIY market gives the industry a chance to showcase the power of pro system
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