What’s in it for me? Discover the opportunities and challenges of the Future Home era.
Imagine waking up to the smell of coffee and eggs, freshly prepared for you by your automatic kitchen.
Your smart closet has already picked out and ironed your outfit for the day.
As you take a shower, you watch the news, projected onto your bathroom wall, as your digital butler schedules the autonomous car share service that will take you to work.
Sounds like a sci-fi scenario?
It could be reality sooner than you think!
Many of the technologies that could allow our homes to become truly “smart” already exist.
One of those is the new 5G wireless standard for telecommunication.
But innovations in edge computing, eSIMs, and Internet of Things technologies also play an important role.
If you’re unsure what any of these terms mean, don’t worry.
These blinks will introduce you to these core technologies of the Future Home – as well as the smart services and devices they could enable.
Moreover, they’ll let you in on the opportunities and challenges the Future Home will bring for different businesses.
You’ll learn how the 5G wireless standard will revolutionize smart home technology; what hurdles home service providers will have to overcome; and which companies are best equipped to become the leaders of the Future Home industry.
Our Future Homes will be hyper-connected, hyper-personalized technology hubs.
WiFi-enabled TVs, smart thermostats, automated grocery delivery – many homes today are already enhanced by digital services and devices.
But even though these gadgets are connected to the internet, they’re not connected to each other.
Your Philips smart light and your Apple TV, for instance, can’t communicate to create the perfect lighting ambience for your movie night.
Yet this is precisely what a truly smart home should be able to do: coordinate a variety of digital services and devices to perfectly suit your needs.
The key message here is: Our Future Homes will be hyper-connected, hyper-personalized technology hubs.
What would a perfect Future Home look like?
In order to get a sense of what’s possible, let’s imagine a day in the life of an average family living in the Future Home era.
Meet the Smiths.
It’s Saturday morning, and husband Paul is playing with his 2-year-old son Winnie in the garden.
In the background, an autonomous lawn mower quietly clips the yard.
Paul is trying to teach Winnie how to count to 10, but he’s interrupted when his wife Susan calls him into the house.
So Paul hands Winnie a smart, talking teddy bear that picks up with the counting lesson where he left off.
The teddy bear also has a nanny cam, so it can send an alert to both parents should it sense any danger to Winnie.
Inside, Paul finds his wife Susan reprimanding their 8-year-old daughter Katherine for breaking one of the smart smoke detectors with her bouncy ball.
The home command node has immediately registered the damage, and the digital voice assistant now asks Susan if she wants to order a replacement.
Susan agrees, and the new smoke detector is delivered by drone within an hour.
When it arrives, she just has to take it out of the box and plug it into its socket – no setup, no installment – and the new device is immediately integrated into the central network.
In the afternoon, Susan has her yearly at-home physical examination.
She goes to a designated room in the house, where her doctor greets her over video chat.
The doctor can measure Susan’s vitals over her smart wristband.
Good news – her blood pressure has lowered!
To celebrate, Susan takes Katherine on a virtual walk with grandma Dottie.
Seamless, easy-to-use, and interactive – the Smiths live in the ideal Future Home.
By integrating a number of digital services and devices, it can solve simple problems on its own, assist with complex ones, and anticipate future issues.
And this wasn’t simply an exercise in imagination.
As we’ll see in the next blink, such Future Homes could be just around the corner.
5G will pave the road to the Future Home.
5G – it’s one of those hype words you’ve heard a thousand times, yet probably still couldn’t explain to a friend.
But the word itself isn’t all that mysterious: “5G” simply stands for “Fifth Generation,” signifying the fifth upgrade of the international standard for wireless connectivity.
5G is the successor to the 4G LTE standard currently used in mobile communication – and it could provide the basis for truly smart home technology.
The key message?
5G will pave the road to the Future Home.
What makes 5G so much better than 4G or home WiFi when it comes to Future Home connectivity?
First of all, as you’ve probably already guessed, 5G is much faster.
Whereas WiFi usually runs on one of two spectrum bands – either 2.
4 or 5 GHz – 5G combines a multitude of spectrum bands for maximum speed.
As a result, it has a latency of only 1 millisecond, meaning it takes a third of a blink of an eye for a signal to cross from the main network to your device.
Second, 5G has better reach.
While your home WiFi reaches about 50 meters at best, probably even with a few “dead zones” around the house, the mobile 5G network can reach a device up to over 16,000 meters away.
Third, 5G allows for more connections.
It can connect 1 million devices per square kilometer – ten times more than 4G.
This is a crucial requisite for the advanced “Internet of Things” of the Future Home, in which all kinds of home devices – like your fridge, thermostat, or TV – are able to connect and communicate online.
Advancements in speed, data capacity, and coverage give 5G the edge needed to power the Future Home.
And most industrial countries are already in the process of switching to this new wireless standard.
Once universally adopted, there’s another way 5G will bring us closer to the Future Home.
It will replace the many different and incoherent wireless standards our devices currently run on, finally enabling them to communicate with each other.
Of course, 5G alone won’t bring about the Future Home.
In order to enable a hyper-personalized and hyper-connected home experience, 5G needs to be combined with other cutting-edge technology such as eSIMs, edge computing, and advanced data analytics.
Edge computing, for example, is a way to rely on small, local centers for data processing rather than far-away storage sites.
As more and more of our devices go online, this new system will provide essential relief for the central network.
New consumer trends will shape Future Home technology.
The consumer technology of the future will be shaped by the needs of future consumers – predominantly Millennials and members of Gen Z.
By 2030, Gen Zers will have come of age, and Millennials will reach the height of their spending power.
Both generations have distinct expectations when it comes to their work, home, and social lives – expectations that will drive the next big home tech trends.
Here’s the key message: New consumer trends will shape Future Home technology.
As digital natives, Gen Zers and Millennials already rely heavily on personalized digital services and devices in their daily lives.
Increasingly, they don’t associate “home” with a fixed physical location, but rather a set of devices, services, and emotions.
No wonder they can be very picky when it comes to the user experience and service quality of their technology!
Millennials and Gen Zers are more likely to have a “Do It For Me” than a DIY attitude.
They want technology that automates all the mundane tasks that eat into their productivity and leisure time – without having to work for it first.
For Future Home technology, this means products and services must be as easy to set up as possible.
Of course, the Future Home must also accommodate older generations.
As life expectancy increases and society grows older, tech-enabled home healthcare could play a significant part.
Already, 76 percent of older people say they would like to age in their own homes.
Home technology that allows for virtual check-ups and remote monitoring by doctors and relatives could help them do so.
But the needs of Future Home users don’t just differ between generations – they also differ between personalities.
Research from consulting firm Accenture has found that the new class of home tech consumers can be categorized along three axes.
First, people differ in their understanding of home.
“Showstopper” types see their homes as a reflection of their personal brand and like to impress guests with stylish furniture and expensive gadgets.
On the other end of this spectrum are the “Nesters,” who prefer their homes to be comfortable and safe.
The second measure divides people according to their tech savviness.
“Explorers” are the early adopters of new technology, while the more tentative “Navigators” prefer tried-and-tested technologies.
Last, consumers can be divided by whether they have children or not.
In order to be successful, Future Home businesses must identify the needs and preferences of each of these new consumer types – and make technology that provides each of them with the sense of identity, safety, and comfort that they expect.
The biggest challenges for the Future Home will be data fragmentation, privacy, and cost.
In a previous blink, we learned that 5G could bring us a big step closer to the Future Home.
For example, 5G could streamline wireless protocols to make devices more compatible with each other.
But all that is of little use if the companies making those devices are unwilling to share data with one another.
And there’s plenty of other hurdles to overcome before automated drone delivery and virtual doctor appointments can become reality.
Here’s the key message: The biggest challenges for the Future Home will be data fragmentation, privacy, and cost.
So-called data siloing is perhaps the biggest roadblock on the way to the Future Home – many companies are still reluctant to share information about their devices, software, and customers with third parties, least of all other companies.
But when different smart technologies can’t share data, they can’t understand, learn, and adapt in the ways needed to provide the seamless user experience of the Future Home.
In order to integrate information efficiently, Future Home companies need to start sharing user data.
This brings us to the second obstacle: data privacy.
When everything from your car to your toilet is connected to a central home command node – and that command node has access to your bank details, social security number, and even health information – rock-solid protocols on how to protect that data are indispensable.
To start with, companies can no longer bury information on data privacy in the fine print.
The Future Home industry needs clear, accessible standards for data storage and management that gives users firsthand control over their personal information.
In addition, companies will have to ramp up their security standards to protect users against hacks and other cyber attacks.
In a recent Accenture study on cyber security, 24 percent of tested companies couldn’t detect half of the breach attempts to their networks.
In a world where your fridge knows things about you that even your spouse doesn’t, this is unacceptable.
The final challenge for the emerging Future Home industry will be initial cost.
Currently, connected home devices such as smart thermostats are between 150 and 2,000 percent more expensive than their analog counterparts.
Imagine having to pay this extra charge on the hundreds of devices in your Future Home!
For the Future Home to become the new normal, it must be affordable.
The only way to do that is for companies to work together and slowly build demand, so that mass production can bring down device prices.
Communication Service Providers could become the main architects of the Future Home.
For Future Home technology to work, a broad range of hardware and software providers, as well as tech and service companies, will have to come together under one roof – literally!
Sounds like a pipe dream?
Well, the companies that have the power to bring everyone together already exist.
In fact, you probably depend on one for your daily online needs.
The key message here is: Communication Service Providers could become the main architects of the Future Home.
Communication Service Providers – CSPs – such as AT&T and Verizon, are uniquely equipped to lead the Future Home industry.
Why?
Because they’re the ones who’ll provide the 5G broadband connectivity needed for the smart technology.
But that’s not all.
CSPs are also used to catering to millions of customers at once.
And they seem to be doing so quite well, scoring uniquely high in surveys measuring customer trust in different service providers.
Already, around 49 percent of Millenials could imagine relying on their CSP for home healthcare.
On top of that, CSPs have a solid data privacy and security record.
It helps that in most countries, they are publicly regulated by the government.
All these factors position CSPs to become the main operators and orchestrators of Future Home technology.
But to pull it off, they too will have to restructure their business model.
First of all, they’ll need to step up their service game.
Future Home users will need real-time, seamless, and proactive customer service.
The only way to provide this for millions of customers will be by automating parts of the process.
Spanish CSP Telefónica, for example, already uses an AI-based voice assistant that can interact with customers and give customer support recommendations.
In addition, CSPs need to train smart and competent human employees who are able to understand, anticipate, and cater to the needs of the Future Home customer.
Satisfying Future Home customers will also force CSPs to speed up their product development.
Instead of rolling new technology out slowly, they should adopt the “fail fast” mentality of the startup industry.
This means bringing new services and products to market quickly and then using customer data to improve, refine, or simply abandon them.
And finally, CSPs need to open up their business model to make room for other companies providing Future Home devices and services.
In the final blink, we’ll see how they could achieve this.
The Future Home ecosystem will bring together businesses, developers, and customers on a single platform.
Everyone knows that Amazon is one of the most successful businesses in the world.
But do you know the secret to its success?
Here’s the short answer: it’s a platform.
The key message is: The Future Home ecosystem will bring together businesses, developers, and customers on a single platform.
Amazon does not merely sell online goods – it also makes, stores, and delivers them.
It provides product subscriptions, video streaming, and grocery delivery.
But most importantly, it makes it easy for third-party vendors and developers to participate in its ecosystem.
For example, around 100,000 of the apps now available for Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa were made by independent developers.
In order to become leaders of the Future Home industry, CSPs will have to take a page from Amazon’s book and adopt a similar multi-sided platform model.
The Future Home can only come to pass if a collaborative and mutually beneficial ecosystem grows around its core technology.
For this, CSPs will need to build a platform that allows data to flow freely between hard- and software companies, app developers, and home users.
And then they need to create the right incentive for these parties to join their platform.
For commercial players, this means the opportunity to make money with good services and products.
In addition, they’ll expect assistance by the CSPs along the distribution chain – for example, with customer support.
For customers, the incentive must be a great user experience.
You know, the kind where your fridge knows exactly how many beers to order for your birthday barbecue.
In such an ecosystem, the CSPs’ main job is managing and consolidating the huge swaths of data collected through Future Home technology.
The easiest and most efficient way to do this would be to create a single national, or even global, reservoir for all the data.
Of course, no one company should be in charge of this core data reservoir.
In order to preserve neutrality, CSPs could manage the reservoir along the lines of SWIFT – the platform that banks use for international finance transactions.
SWIFT is decentrally controlled and funded by all the banks that use it.
This vision of a platform-based ecosystem with CSPs at its core could solve the problems previously discussed.
It overcomes data fragmentation by bringing companies, developers, and users together.
It solves privacy and security issues through decentral regulation of its main data reservoir.
And last, it’s scalable and sustainable enough to bring down the cost of devices and services.
Final summary
The key message in these blinks: The supersmart Future Home could materialize very soon.
New technologies such as 5G could provide the basic infrastructure for a hyper-connected Internet of Things, suited to the needs and desires of future consumers.
Communication Service Providers could lead the way in this new Future Home industry – but they will need to update their business models to address the challenges of tech fragmentation, cost, and security.
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What to read next: Digital Darwinism, by Tom Goodwin Did The Future Home in the 5G Era get you thinking about the business trends of the future?
Then you might be interested in exploring other new work and lifestyle trends that are shaping future industries in Digital Darwinism.
Tech innovation expert Tom Goodwin explains how digitalization has revolutionized the playing field for modern businesses – and how these can survive and thrive in this new world nonetheless.
If you want to learn how to make your business future-proof, check out our blinks to Digital Darwinism.