GET SMART

BY CAMERON CARR

Photos courtesy of D.R. Horton

Smart home technology continues to improve and expand

An Alexa Dot making one of D .R . Horton’s builds a smart home .

By the end of this year, smart homes spending is expected to reach $33.66 billion, according to Statista. In 2012, Statista placed market revenue at just $1.63 billion. As consumer interest has grown, so, too, have smart home technology options.

At the beginning of the 21st century, smart homes barely registered as a concept. The invention of Wi-Fi in 1997 opened up the possibility of future technology, but the idea of home automation mostly stuck to science fiction, though a 1999 Disney Channel movie, Smart House, teased the idea.

The technology has developed rapidly over the last 15 years, with significant improvements in wireless speeds, Bluetooth capabilities and other technology. Nest launched its Learning Thermostat in 2011 and smart bulbs, locks and more soon followed.

Today, it’s common to see homes equipped with voice assistant speakers, video doorbells and smart garage doors. There’s a wide variety of new smart technology on the market now, from curtains to sprinklers. Understandably, homebuilders often offer the option to build in smart home capabilities for ease of use.

By building with smart home features in mind, homeowners can maximize their home’s capabilities while also making all of those features easier to use.

Builders such as D.R. Horton, which offers a smart home package called Home Is Connected, bundle features together and ensure compatibility across devices. Home Is Connected features include Amazon Echo devices, Honeywell thermostats, Skybell video doorbells, Kwikset locks, Qolsys panels and smart light switches.

“We want to make sure that this ecosystem of products is all going to work together to have a better home experience for our consumers,” says Brad Conlon, D.R. Horton vice president, director of national accounts, in a video on the company’s smart home options.

As smart devices proliferate, though, connectivity has become an increasing concern for users. Competitors increase options, but a lack of compatibility across brands can decrease ease of use for consumers.

Coming Soon

The smart home market is shifting to improve cross-device functionality. A number of major companies – including Amazon, Apple, Google and Samsung – worked with the Connectivity Standards Alliance to develop a new connectivity standard, called Matter, expected to launch this fall. Matter aims to make any device, regardless of brand, compatible with any other smart home system. It’s a consumer-focused solution that will make smart home devices more accessible and useful.

Building a home with smart capabilities in mind can allow for greater compatibility as well, and builders have taken note. Many builders offer options to plan smart home capacity during construction and coordinate products for compatibility with a smart hub.

A smart hub consolidates the controls for multiple devices into a single operating system, typically an app. All of the devices in D.R. Horton’s package, for example, are controllable by the Alarm. com app.

All of these changes – expansion of features, increased compatibility and ability to build into a home – are likely to continue growing the popularity of smart home technology. By 2026, Statista estimates, more than two-thirds of American homes will have smart technology, a rapid increase from just one-third in 2019.