Department store John Lewis has just opened its new £33 million location with 230,000 square-feet at White City Westfield, London. In addition to various splendid shopping areas, an immersive home environment showcasing Apple HomeKit was also created.
Department store John Lewis has just opened its new £33 million location with 230,000 square-feet at White City Westfield, London. In addition to various splendid shopping areas, an immersive home environment showcasing Apple HomeKit was also created.
In this simulated home powered by HomeKit, consumers can have a real hands-on experience with connected devices that support the Apple platform. They can see how gadgets made by different manufacturers work together in the Home app, as well as playing with Siri in the store – asking the voice assistant to dim the light, play music or turn the heating on.
While media outlet House Beautiful asked the store why not to partner with Amazon or Google instead, the representative from John Lewis said “Our stats revealed 77% of searches onto JohnLewis.com are from iOS devices. We know Amazon are going after this space, we know Google are going after it in a big way – this is our chance to bring that to life in an iOS setting.”
John Lewis is not the first place to showcase Apple HomeKit in retail locations. Last year, Apple began to showcase HomeKit capabilities in its retail stores around the world – including the U.S., UK, UAE, Germany, Mexico, Singapore and Taiwan.
By the stores, customers can use the Home app from various Apple devices, such as iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch, to control devices like Philips Hue light bulb and the Hunter ceiling fan. They can try to tap buttons on the screen or talk to Siri and control the gadgets.
The HomeKit-enabled home located in John Lewis can undoubtedly give consumers a better demonstration than in Apple’s retail store. Because the home setting working with Siri and the Home app gives more real experience than in Apple Store where other consumers are asking questions about laptops and tablets.
However, the adoption rate of Apple HomeKit is facing a big challenge now. Due to its relatively closed ecosystem, the numbers of smart home devices working with Amazon Alexa and Google Home are bigger than with Apple HomeKit.
In terms of the popular voice assistant applications, Siri is also falling behind Alexa or Google Assistant on third-party applications supports. As for smart speakers, Apple HomePod holds a much higher price with great hardware but less intelligent software for consumers.
Although Apple initiated smart home platform earlier and its iOS system is widely used, the company is falling behind in the current smart home market.