When I originally planned the content for yesterday’s post about home automation I had planned to talk a little bit about Apple’s strategy when it comes to home automation and more generally the internet of things.
The home automation competitive landscape
Some feedback I received after yesterday’s post reminded me what a competitive space the home automation market. From established players like Cisco, D-link, Google, Microsoft and of course Apple the would be market crashes number in the hundreds if not the thousands. Articles forward to me covered crowd funding, open source and even non-profit initiatives (raspberry pi) aimed at breaking into this market. Like I said yesterday the explosion is coming.
How about the apple advantage
Apples business model balances proprietary with open use (see the app store) but the key is all their devices work together and often (although that is changing a bit) don’t integrate with other devices. Will we see Android/ IoS compatibility or seamless integration of applications for use on multi-platforms – not in my lifetime. Apple see no advantage to this. In fact probably just the opposite in terms of building a stakeholder base and associated revenues. Why share with someone else.
Which brings us to Apple – Home Automation and the Internet of Things (IOT)
Home automation in it’s basic form is an extension of the IOT, that is devices communicating (intelligently) with other devices. Apples suite of devices from laptop, desktop, phone to watches, i-pad and i-pod all do this (communicate with each other) seamlessly, mostly without effort or thought on the users part (often even when you don’t want them to, it’s hard to disable – ah-ha; Apple is big brother).
Think about Sony, Samsung (stuck with what google wants android to integrate with) and LG, General Electric, Philips, Cisco just to name a few device manufacturers that would really benefit from integration of their devices through automation applications. Their best best is to go beg apple to integrate with them as they have the biggest market share of inter-operable devices in place. Or of course build their own, not cheap.