Smart Home Use Cases

One of the obvious trends at CES this year, and connected with the IoT, is the smart home. I read an article today that reminds us that many people are still scratching their heads, a bit, at what the smart home will really do that is actually compelling, and whether it's going to be worth the money. For example, if you're willing to pay $100, you can teach an otherwise $10 lightbulb to listen for commands over Wi-Fi. Am I going to pay 10x the price so that I can remotely tell a light bulb to turn itself on or off? Never. Or how about my washing machine? Am I going to do back flips of excitement to be able to remotely connect to my washing machine to see where it is in its cycle? Kind of cute, but pretty uncompelling. (a classic novelty thing)

So where is all of this going? And will it really deliver value to the home? I figured I'd go the other way around -- not what technology can do today, but what the use cases are that I'd be delighted to see it be capable of.

(Many of the following things are at least a couple of decades away, etc, but I'll include them in the list anyway.)

The big three are pretty obvious, and they're a ways off, but ultimately, I think this is where much of the value lies:

Tidying

I think the most alluring smart home technology would be devices that can tidy the home. For example, putting away toys in the proper bin, picking up clothes of family members that don't seem to know where the laundry bin is, etc, etc. The reason I would value this so much is that an untidy home is something that psychologically wears on me a lot, and it can take a lot of mental energy to keep on top of it. I expect we're at least 20 years a way from systems that are both capable of this and not a ridiculous amount of money. But let's be clear -- when we scratch our heads and wonder "will this ever be compelling", the self-tidying home, for me, is one of the ultimate use cases that for me says "absolutely"!

Cleaning

This is actually something that we started to see a few years ago -- systems that can vacuum carpeted and hard floors. But if and when this expands to include dusting furniture, cleaning kitchen surfaces, cleaning bathrooms, etc, it's obvious that customers will place high value on it.

Laundry

Another high-value category. And machines are already delivering huge value in this area -- washers and dryers. But when the day comes that you drop your underwear beside your bed in the morning and it automatically finds its way into the laundry to be washed, dried, and put away, I think we can all agree that people will throw their money at the solution.

...

Beyond these big three, here is a long list of little things, some of which are much closer to being plausible:

Lights that automatically turn themselves off when people aren't in the room. This sounds simple, but I would really appreciate this. The number of times I've had to turn off Eli's light or the bathroom light is a bit depressing. Not having to think about turning lights off would be pretty nice.

Sometimes we put something in the washing machine but don't hear it beep, or don't attend to it immediately, and then we forget. We then discover it a day or two later, and the wet laundry stinks and needs to be re-washed. It would be great if the washing machine would send me an email after 4 hours, and again after 8 hours, etc, if not attended to yet.

Last year (?) I left the BBQ on for 19 hours on high. It sure would have been nice if our smartphone beeped shortly after we emptied the BBQ and left it running. On a similar note, it would be nice if we would be notified anytime *any* gas-using device was left on accidentally. (by monitoring the gas line itself)

Sometimes (3 times a year, perhaps), I forget to close the garage door and we go to bed with the garage wide open for the whole night. Wouldn't it be nice if the house let us know we had forgotten to close the garage door?

I'd like it if every device in the home internally measured how much energy it was drawing, and kept track of that in terms of when and how much it used. A master system could then aggregate that data to show you what devices were drawing what amounts of energy, and answer one-off questions such as "what percentage of our electricity bill does our TV account for", or "what devices use the most electricity", or "how much money would we save each year if we purchased such-and-such dishwasher", etc, etc.

Ultimately it would be nice if every physical thing in the home had a minuscule tag built into it so that the home knew its x/y/z coordinates. Can't find the remote? No problem. Can't remember what box such-and-such is in? Easy. Not sure whether you left something at the cottage? Just ask.

Self-diagnosing devices: Wouldn't it be great if devices had self-diagnostic abilities so that when they went caput, they could communicate to you and to the service agent exactly what went wrong, reducing the cost and time it takes to fix it, and in some cases, to allow you to fix it.

On a related note, wouldn't it be great if along with self-diagnosing devices, things were also self-documenting. So, when something goes wrong with your device, you could tap into detailed instructions that would show you how to fix it if you had the basic skills required to do so. (and if you didn't it could even link to how-to's and youtube videos to teach you how to do the basic skills required to fix the device yourself) If you didn't have a certain tool, wouldn't it be great if your family and friends were connected in such a way as to be able to see the closest friend that had that tool?

Measure waterfall and soil characteristics and recommend intelligently when it is critical to water the lawn to prevent it from dying, etc. Likewise, tell the homeowner when soil characteristics (and season, etc) are such that a fertilizer should be applied, or a grub treatment should be applied, etc.

Ping the homeowner when the furnace filter needs to be replaced, or any other seasonal thing that people tend to forget.

We had a leak in our basement this year, but I think it first started a few years ago and we didn't notice. Now we're left with a basement that sometimes has a bit of a musty odor. It would be great if homes had sensors that could detect and report any issues of this kind before they did damage, and to help localize where exactly the problem is and how bad. If sensors become cheap enough, perhaps one day this kind of thing would be feasible.

Kids eventually get to the stage where they play outside on their own. Sometimes when I peek out the window I happen to see Eli doing something unsafe, and I go outside to talk to him. It would be nice if cameras on the exterior of the home were watching everything going on, and would ping parents if something dangerous was going on that they themselves hadn't noticed. Obviously there's a danger with anything like this, where a parent might come to simply rely on the danger-detection device to catch everything, when it wouldn't.

It would be nice if a home was able to see (via infrared cameras, etc.) where thermal issues were, etc, and to be able to recommend if asked how to improve the thermal characteristics of the home, etc, or to warn the homeowner if door seals had degredated, etc, in order to be replaced.

Another very difficult but extremely valuable use case is the management of the kitchen. Namely, what meals are planned for, and what food is purchased. I worked on this one a bit in 2008. Here's the notion:
The fridge and cupboards know what is in them because food items have RFID (etc) tags.
You can therefore have the computer recommend a supper recipe based on foods in the kitchen.
You can also be walking through the super market and see what commonly used foods you recently ran out of.
This could be tied into a system that would plan your meals for you. It would optimize nutrition, cost, preference, etc, and would stay within dietary concerns, etc. It could also help reduce waste.
This could again be further automated by having the system do the ordering of the food once the meal plan had been OK'd by the home owner.
Food could be delivered rather than purchased manually at the grocery store.

...

Anyway, no shortage of compelling use cases, I think. But many of them will take years, and in some cases, decades, to become common place, I think. That might make for a bit of a yawn-fest in the next 10 years as the things that become available seem a bit head-scratch-worthy... I guess we'll have to wait and see how quickly things unfold.