LAS VEGAS— The Internet of Things (IoT) was a major focus at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show as smart home products infiltrated nearly all segments with growth seen in several housewares categories including wellness and small kitchen electrics.
While the rapid growth of “smart” home products was on display throughout the show here, issues including security and interoperability related to connected items were also key talking points.
Emerging as the backbone of these categories, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become embedded in both the front end and back end of consumer electronics.
On the front end, Amazon’s AI, Alexa, dominated the show floor, boasting integration across every major industry. From major appliances like LG’s Smart InstaView refrigerator to small electrics like Gourmia’s new line of connected appliances, vendors credited Alexa’s first to market status and continuing evolution to its rising presence.
When it comes to the backend, vendors showcased internal AI aimed at simplifying the consumer experience by allowing the appliance to learn from its consumer’s habits and customizing itself for that particular user.
Timothy Buszka, assistant brand manager, Whirlpool Brand, explained, “We’re no longer saying 83% of consumers use this one function so we’re going to jam it into every appliance. Now, everything is tailored to you and it should just feel like a friendly helper in the kitchen.”
However, two major challenges are still the topic of conversation for consumer electronics that inescapably affect adoption and growth: security and interoperability.
Federal regulation has been on the tip of the industry’s tongue when it comes to bringing smart home.
Just before the show kicked off, the Federal Trade Commission launched the IoT Home Inspector Challenge, which prompted the public to create a tool that would address security vulnerabilities caused by out-of-date software in IoT devices, the first government challenge addressing IoT issues and one that seemingly motions towards further government involvement.
However, a number of industry alliances have begun to take shape, with three of the most notable present at the show, tasked with taking on these challenges.
Brian Scriber, principal architect, security, Cable Labs, for the Open Connectivity Foundation, said, “When you look around the floor there are hundreds of entrepreneurial firms that are just trying to get this thing off the ground, and sometimes security takes a backseat. That’s the part that none of us want to see happen. By creating a specification in OCF and then implementing it in IoTivity, we’re hoping that we can raise the tide for all boats.”
When it comes to connected health, Liat Ben-Zur, svp/digital technology leader at Philips, said that while the bar for data privacy is higher in health tech due to its highly regulated environment, when it comes to interoperability, it’s even more critical.
“When you look at our desire to create these longitudinal records of our lives, meaning all the IoT devices that I have at home, the wearables I have as I live my life, the things that happen to me in the hospital and what the doctors have reported and tracked, if I want to be able to connect those dots and paint a richer picture of my health I need to be able to have this data live in a common platform. If all of us are building solutions in these silos we’ll never be able to paint that rich picture,” said Ben-Zur.
What road the smart home and connected health categories will take to overcome these and other challenges has yet to be seen, but one thing is clear. “Eventually everything will be connected, whether consumers are buying it now or not. That’s the future,” one major appliance vendor said.
