SMAhome of Messe Frankfurt yesterday co-hosted the Allion Validation Academy 2018 with Allion Labs, an international leader providing IT consulting and testing services in product certification and interoperability, in Taipei, to talk about the major smart home trends and...
SMAhome of Messe Frankfurt yesterday co-hosted the Allion Validation Academy 2018 with Allion Labs, an international leader providing IT consulting and testing services in product certification and interoperability, in Taipei, to talk about the major smart home trends and wireless connectivity development and challenges in 2018.
Seeing the market since initial stage of smart home, Veronica Chen, Editor in Chief of SMAhome, cited top ten highlights of the smart home industry in the coming future in dimensions of technology, product and application. “With voice command becoming a must-have functionality of smart home devices, we are looking into the advanced artificial intelligence and edge-computing features to further enhance home experience and convenience,” explained Chen.
Chen cited emerging smart devices including wellness implementations and home companion robots. “Although home security products remain a popular topic in smart home industry and consumer market, we can still clearly see that consumers are having a stronger interest in their own health management and well-being controls. Smart thermostat, environmental sensors, HVAC controls, and especially, smart mirrors and aroma diffusers, are all examples,” explained Chen, “Another emerging trend can be home companion robots. Even most robots are still in early stages, more compatible abilities to assist smart home living can be expected.”
Application areas utilizing smart home technologies are gaining the market as well. Hotels and hospitalities like Marriot and Hilton are bringing automation controls into rooms, or applying remote management systems; security devices can also provide authorized access for in-home delivery, or being applied into smart retail stores for management.
In the following sessions, Allion Labs speakers talked about wireless connectivity and real-time smart home product testing in its IoT Innovation Center. “Allion IoT Innovation Center is able to create more than a thousand of scenarios, testing and validating performances from end-device, connectivity to cloud service,” explained Rick Li, Senior Manager, Business Development Operation Strategy & Planning of Allion Labs. Based on different user scenarios, Allion IoT Innovation Center has mimicked testing spaces as apartment, suite, control center, and smart campus, aiming to find out the product stability and weakness in wireless connection.
With rapid progress of home technology, challenges are also faced by various product developers. Thomas Chang, Senior Manger of Allion Labs also indicated various smart home product weaknesses in wireless communication, including latency, throughput, and packet loss. “Using heat map validation, we are able to find out the effectiveness and quality of wireless connectivity. The result can effectively help device developers to optimize wireless functions, and ‘really’ build up a smarter living of home,” Chang concluded.