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Home automation solutions are still perceived as luxury and expensive solutions; builders selling upscale homes use this as a USP today. With prevalent focus on safety issues, there is a trigger for home automation around security. There are challenges around integration, bandwidth and consistent power to make the home automation systems work. Channel partners who bring technologies from abroad should see these as an opportunity for providing customized services.
Most elite residential constructions are today adopting the concept of Home automation. In most metros, the multi-story apartment complexes are increasingly completely automated.
The catch here is that such systems are neither easier to implement and nor low cost. This is where channel partners come in. Karthik V, Director of Ocher Automation, Chennai, says that, over the last few years, both builders and residents have engaged them in building smarter homes. “People come to us with all kind of requests – fixing a smart device to total home automation solutions,” he says talking about the types of customers ,”we get requests from two types of customers, large independent homes and high rise apartments. The needs are similar, but vastly different because of both demography and structure of the buildings.”
According to Allied Market Research, the home automation market globally will be growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.5% from 2013 to 2020, with Asia Pacific the fastest growing market with nearly 38% CAGR. In India, Intelligent Business Management Systems (IBMS) have found their way into commercial buildings and factories. “Home automation though will focus on standalone IBMS and basic convergence with smart phones,” says Karthik. Suresh, an independent consultant who consults with channels says “With the advent of Internet of Everything or IOE as it is commonly known as, home automation is one aspect of it that is definitely something that cannot be ignored.”
How are these services offered to customers? Do customers know enough about “Home Automation”? Karthik reacts with an emphatic “no”“. Although most of the expensive apartments in India have offered this solution as a bundling of features to sell a home buyer, majority of the Indian market is still not developed enough to accept this solution so readily. “There are multiple reasons”, Suresh adds here. “Home security, Energy management, and Lighting are the more maturing solutions. The issue is that still there is no clarity on the categorisation of the service offering”, he says. Most customers ask for a specific solution, like “security systems”.
“The Integrated Building Management system, which is the comprehensive management solution of a smart building, comprises of four factors – sensors or smart sensors in the devices, the backbone fiber or copper network, and then application that puts the data together and then, adding to the smartness is analytics,” says Suresh K. “While Fiber to the Home (FTTH) and Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) has enabled service providers reach the premises of large residential complexes and high rises, the intelligent technology is a combination of both the smart device and the smart phone”.
Taking about the challenges, Suresh K says – “most customers I advise are confused on what exactly is Home automation and a lot of small services find themselves labelled as Home automation, because frankly speaking a lot of companies differ on what exactly home automation is thereby making this a very non-standardised service.” Karthik says “most of the operators like us are distributors or resellers for European or American home automation service providers that caters to the housing market in the west.” So the technology is essentially a channel or system integrator market of European or American technologies.
Another trend which also manifests as a challenge is the opportunities around integrating disparate technologies. While there are common standards, some proprietary stands impede customers to have a “total control” over the smart devices in one console. Karthik explains, “Integration of home automation technology with air conditioners that are a bit less advanced restricts the options to just relaying an On/Off signal, as presently no Original Equipment Manufacturer has worked with Air Conditioner manufacturers in the country in order to port – so the maximum one can do is do a relay on/off as no OEM has worked with AC manufacturers in India to port codes for IR in order to enable multiple other features!” This is a case in point. Similar problems exist with other devices like smart kitchen units. Suresh adds “Not only that, home security systems are difficult to integrate in India as most of the homes in India still use outdated Analog cameras that come with DVRs for managing their security needs.”
Karthik feels that there is a myth that Home automation is a costly affair and is only for luxurious homes. Considering that safety of seniors, women and children are becoming important; he insists that at least the smart solutions around safety will gain momentum. Suresh adds “In most developed countries, there was a wave of evolution per say with a security alarm for homes progression to home automation.”
“A typical challenge in India is that we did not have a “security solution” as the first wave, so that the home automation becomes a natural evolution” explains Krishna Kumar, who is the CEO of Nettree Solutions which offers Home Safety solutions. But the plus point is that the customer have accepted smart phones very easily, and positioning “home safety in your hand” approach might work well; we are looking forward for some applications in this area,” he says.
The trend that, especially with IT enabled homes, is cloud based home automation services. We might be aware of Google’s acquisition of home automation services like Nest. However, at this point, putting home security and automation on the cloud is an unacceptable proposition for Indian consumers. Krishna says,”privacy issues of the cloud with no proper customer education is the biggest stumbling block.”
Suresh adds “Experiences of mobile and telephony companies exemplify our mind set being more open to a concept of pre-paid than avail a service that is paid for, on an ongoing basis! Couple this with lack of and mostly insufficient bandwidth, a customer’s nightmare on Home Automation Services on the cloud cannot be ruled out. “
Finally, the home truth is that providing a home automation service first and foremost requires a consistent source of power supply. Suresh explains this, “Unlike western countries, most Indian homes experience power outages that last up to hours. Integrating the smart home system with a power backup or a battery that could serve during the downtime but at the moment none of the providers have an offering like this in the market”, he says. Krishna agrees, “That is the biggest problem to solve. Lack of consistent power supply is the largest deterrent to home automation business growth.”
If there are any solutions, it is worth exploring, says Karthik.
India can be an exciting market for Home Automation systems, but a lot depends on how channel partners and system integrators customise and localise the products and services to better serve the Indian consumer, while at the same time not diluting the real motive of what such a system can offer.
