The home tech of the future has become the home tech of today; now you can buy anything from smart thermostats and moisture detectors, to automatic locks and remotely controlled lights, all of which can be operated from a smartphone remotely.
These products have evolved a lot from the days of ‘clap on’ lights that people used to impress their friends in the noughties though.
There are clear, tangible benefits to having your home closely monitored and controllable from afar.
Having motion sensors that turns lights on and off is an obvious way to save on electricity bills, the same thing goes for thermostats that turn themselves off when a person leaves a room, and a home can be made more secure by motion detecting cameras that can be monitored from a phone or smart watch to check on potential intrusions.
The major players in tech have already grabbed a slice of the action: Samsung has already bought Smart Home, Google own Nest and Apple have got HomeKit to help sync up iOS to smart home devices.
With the amount of money these giants can throw into development, this trend isn’t going anywhere.
With that in mind, here are 10 companies that will be leading the charge for home tech in the years to come:
Smart Lock
The August Smart Lock allows users to use a phone app to open and close a door. That’s a pretty basic solution in itself, but add in the fact that users can invite their friends and other potential houseguests with digital invitations that can be tailored for specific circumstances, as well as offering push notifications to alert users when their locks are being opened, August has come up with some extremely handy home tech.
Home
Withings’ Home allows users to monitor an area of their house for movement, air quality and sound, so it can function as a intruder detector that sends notifications to an app, as a room monitor to keep an eye on children or pets and as an advanced baby monitor that can send notifications when crying is detected. How webcams have grown.
SmartThings
Built as a platform to control all you’re home tech, SmartThings can control everything from lighting to cooking equipment to motion detectors, the SmartThings app can control a whole host of gadgetry from the palm of your hand. Samsung have an early foothold in the home tech market.
Nest
In January 2014, Google paid $3.2 billion to acquire Nest. It was the tech giant’s 2nd largest acquisition of all time. That fact alone highlights the potential of the home tech market.
Nest’s current portfolio of products include a thermostat that learns your heating patterns, a webcam that can be accessed remotely and a smoke alarm that can be silenced from your smartphone.
Hue
Hue provides smart lighting that can be adjusted from a smart device, change color, be turned on remotely to help reduce the risk of burglary and even be programmed to reflect the weather outside. All of this from wireless bulbs that naturally fit into existing lighting fixtures.
HomeKit
Apple can’t get away from Samsung. Even in the home tech market. Like SmartThings, Apple’s HomeKit venture will act as a platform to control all the tech in a users home and will have voice activation powered by Siri. Perhaps another Android-Apple battle ground.
Tado
Tado is a smart thermostat that bills itself as one of the most efficient, cost-saving ways to heat your home. It is Nest’s primary competitor in Europe. Not only does it claim to save its users money, it also functions as an analyst for heating systems, providing ‘health’ updates of users heating hardware in case a boiler stops working.
SimpliSafe
Already one of America’s most popular home tech security systems, SimpliSafe prides itself on being one of the cheapest security systems and one of the easiest to install. The components simply stick onto a wall and have a five-year battery life. It does what is says on the tin.
Canary
Canary works as an all in one security device with a camera, motion detector, siren and many other home tech features including humidity detectors and air quality sensors. Suited to smaller residences, Canary is extremely easy to set up and sets up a stream of notifications to a phone that become more intelligent the longer a user owns the device.
Wemo
Wemo has created a range of products designed to make life simpler and easier to control from afar. Its range of home tech products include TV controls, heating and scheduled lighting all done remotely via smartphone. Another app that can save users energy bills with ‘kill switches’ on plugged-in devices.
