Imagine having a home where you can control everything with your voice and cell phone – it would be pretty neat right? Well, these Smart Homes actually exist! Imagine never having to worry about your pets sitting in the dark, or walking into a hot home on a sunny summer day, or maybe you just want to get your glass of wine extra chilled for when you get in from work! Now wouldn’t that be bliss! Read on to learn 50 facts about Smart Homes.
Fact 1: In 1966 Echo IV, the first official smart device was invented.
- ECHO IV was the 1st smart device that could do many things like preparing a grocery list, turning on appliances, and controlling the room temperature. The Echo IV was never sold commercially.
Fact 2: Assistive technology was invented for elderly people in the 1980s.
- In September 1980 the first elderly assistive device for the home was invented. The device was used to alert family members and nurses if an elderly person had fallen over.
Fact 3: In 2012 up to 1.5 million homes had been ‘Smart Homed’!
- By 2019 that number had increased to over 47 million homes worldwide. That’s a massive 3133% increase!
Fact 4: Amazon’s Alexa is the most popular Smart Home device available today.
- As of 2019, over 100 million of these devices have been sold worldwide!
Fact 5: 65% more people are ready to invest in Smart Home technology than they were in 2017.
- According to Coldwell Banker, the number of people willing to spend money on smart homes has increased by 25% year-on-year.
Fact 6: The concept of Smart Home technology dates back to the 16th century in renaissance Italy.
- Leonardo Da Vinci, the famous artist, and inventor, was one of the first people to dream about smart home technology.
Fact 7: Alexa was Amazon’s most popular Smart Home device in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
- Alexa dominates the smart home technology industry accounting for 47% of the total market.
Fact 8: Using Smart Home technology can help reduce the amount of electricity wasted per household by up to 31%.
- An example of electrical savings can be found with infrared detecting lights. When a person walks in a room, their body heat is picked up by a sensor, and the light switches on.
Fact 9: According to eMarketer reports, about 33% of internet users in the USA would buy a Smart Home.
- That percentage has increased tremendously since 2017 when only 12% of internet users said they’d be keen to live in a smart home.
Fact 10: Google’s Nest Smart Hub increases the accuracy of voice command interpretation over its rivals by 120%.
- It does this by using an array of extra-sensitive microphones to pick up sound in 3 dimensions, and then interprets and learns the language using algorithms.
Fact 11: Philips Hue LED light bulbs can be connected to a Bluetooth smartphone and controlled from anywhere in the world!
- You could be on holiday on the other side of the planet and you could turn your lights on to make neighbors think somebody was still at home.
Fact 12: The largest Smart Home product manufacturer in the world is Samsung with over $213 billion worth of revenue generated from Smart Home related products.
- This huge figure compares favorably to other big players in the smart home market. For example, Honeywell generated $85 billion worth of revenue: less than half of Samsung’s revenue.
Fact 13: Xanadu 2.0 is a technology stuffed mansion that cost a staggering $127 million to build.
- Owned by Bill Gates, this 66,000 square foot mansion is the essence of smart home technology. The weather, mood, ambiance, lighting and almost everything is controlled by smart home tech devices.
Fact 14: Mark Zuckerburg’s personal smart butler is voiced by Morgan Freeman.
- Zuckerburg’s Butler serves a similar role to Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri. But, it’s far more advanced and purpose-built just for Zukerburg’s house. In fact, It’s so advanced it’s been likened to J.A.R.V.I.S from Marvel’s Iron Man Series.
Fact 15: There’s a $14 million smart heating system that melts the ice on driveways in winter.
- Oprah Winfrey has this mammoth melting machine installed on her drive to combat Mr. Frost. To operate it, she uses Amazon’s Alexa. While the rest of us struggle with snow shovels, all Oprah has to do, for a frost-free driveway, is say, “Alexa, defrost the driveway.”
Fact 16: There are transforming apartments in Portugal.
- The designers at Portuguese architectural firm Consexto have created a dynamic apartment designed to solve Portugal’s lack of living space. They’ve created moveable walls that let residence redesign their living space in real-time depending on their needs. Need an extra room for friends to stay over? No problem! Just slide the wall over, pull out the folding bed, and you have an extra guest room.
Fact 17: The Heliotrope house in Germany generates more electric energy than it uses year-round.
- Rolf Disch designed the eco-friendly house that has movable solar panels. These panels help generate electricity year-round. And when day turns to night, wind turbines kick in to supplement the house’s energy needs.
Fact 18: A Colorado house has a $6 million high tech security system.
- This triumph of technology and security sports cutting edge security cameras, infrared vision, and heat signature detectors that can pick up your sweaty fingerprints even after 20 minutes. And all this can be controlled from the convenience of a smartphone.
Fact 19: There are apartments in Los Angeles, California, that offer their tenants “switchable skins” for the ultimate personalisation experience.
- Fed up with just painting walls? So were some people in Los Angeles. So they invented the Switchable skin apartment. In these smart apartments, every wall, window, and panel can be removed and replaced with unique colours and styles to personalise the space.
Fact 20: The introduction of the Roomba vacuum changed house cleaning forever in 2002.
- Introduced by the iRobot company in 2002, the Roomba vacuum had sold over 10 million units by 2014.
Fact 21: Google launched a special initiative to outfit houses with smart tech that could be controlled from an Android phone or tablet.
- Unfortunately, the total cost of installation was approximately $2 million.
Fact 22: 57% of US residents believe that having smart tech in the house improves their lives.
- The biggest claim is that smart tech saves them about 30 minutes each day. This amounts to one and a half weeks over the course of a year.
Fact 23: The first smart vacuum cleaner was made in 1998.
- Electroflux introduced the first smart vacuum cleaner in 1998. It was considered smart because it could change the airflow of the vacuum in real-time depending on the floor surface.
Fact 24: The first wireless remote controlled garage door was created in the 1980s.
- Amazingly, the “Smart” garage door was invented by 2 separate people, on different sides of the USA, at the same time, without either of them knowing about each other.
Fact 25: 47% of millennials already own a smart device.
- And it seems once you’re bitten by the “smart home bug” your hooked for life. Over 70% of these owners plan on buying another smart home device within 12 months.
Fact 26: It’s expected that by 2025, 37% of new homes will have smart tech built-in.
- However, this infusion of dum bricks and smart electronics will come at a cost: Smart houses are expected to be 5% more expensive than regular builds.
Fact 27: “Insurtech” is used by landlords in the USA to make small financial savings using technology in the insurance industry.
- According to Pew Research Center landlords in the US are focussing on the smart devices and sensors that detect leaking water and gas pipes.
Fact 28: 40% of the American population aged 65 and above already use the Smart Home devices.
- This number is expected to increase dramatically to over 75% by 2025.
Fact 29: As much as 68% of US residents believe that, within the next decade, Smart Homes will be as common as smartphones.
- Additionally, over 81% of those asked in the survey said they’d prefer to buy a house with smart tech pre-installed.
Fact 30: Lowe’s 2015 smart home survey declared that most people like to buy Smart Home tech because of the security benefits.
- 62% of the smart homeowners say that the security was their main motivator for installing smart home tech.
Fact 31: The Automated Garage Doors were inspired by the remote-controlled detonation used in World War II.
- Shockingly, the same radio tech that is used in your remote garage door is nearly identical to the tech that was used to blow up C4 explosive charges.
Fact 32: Companies are beginning to co-operate in an effort to shape future smart home trends.
- At CES 2016 the major companies of smart home tech which include Ford, Samsung, Amazon, and Apple signed an agreement to improve the smart home tech.
Fact 33: Smart thermostats cut around 20% off the average household heating bill.
- In the US, that amounts to around $100 saved each month.
Fact 34: Blink, the wifi camera company, was bought by Amazon for $1 billion in 2018.
- Amazon bought Blink in an effort to corner the smart camera market before it matured.
Fact 35: Control4 has produced the first-ever visual demonstration of the future of Smart Home products.
- Control4 has 150 smart showrooms in 25 global markets. Their mission: to show people the immeasurable benefits of the future smart home.
Fact 36: In 2018 Lenovo announced a 10 and 8 inches Google Assistant integrated smart display for tables, and other surfaces.
- Then in late August 2018, to further cement its place in the smart home industry, Lenovo followed up its smart display introduction with three products to officially launch its Smart Home Essentials line: the Smart Plus Wi-Fi plug, the Smart Bulb, and the Smart Camera Wi-Fi security cam.
Fact 37: In 2019, Smart Home tech decreased US electricity demand from 50% to 33% in some usage scenarios.
- The biggest contributors to this decrease in electricity consumption were smart thermostats used to heat or cool people’s homes.
Fact 38: Wonder Workshop’s Cue Robot is a 9.5-inch tall robot that sports artificial emotional intelligence.
- The Smart Home Robot is equipped with advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence that learns from your facial expressions and voice how to react. The Robot can also be programmed with different emotional behaviors.
Fact 39: The Landroid Lawn Mower from Worx trims your lawns intelligently using active obstacle avoidance.
- On top of active obstacle avoidance, the Landroid can also be controlled using your voice. Additionally, the mower has a range of over 1km so it can mow the largest of gardens.
Fact 40: It’s expected that over 140 million cars will be connected to the internet via 4G and 5G by 2020.
- That’s compared to only 25 million when records began back in 2014.
Fact 41: The Smart Home tech was actually available in the 1990s. But it wasn’t that smart compared to today’s standards.
- Originally, smart home tech in the 90s was considered to be simple things such as self-timing ovens, Home PCs, and TVs.
Fact 42: Lutron, an American company born in New York City in the 50s, has developed a smart device communication system that can control between 50 and 10,000 electrical devices at the same time.
- This technology is expected to be used in the smart factory of the future. Where manufacturing machines can be slowed down or sped up depending on real-time demand for products.
Fact 43: Antilia is a 2 billion USD house that has every smart home tech ever invented.
- Mukesh Ambani, the owner, built the house for an astonishing $2 billion USD. Its smart tech includes a legion of smart robots and one of the most expensive and elaborate security systems ever installed in a house.
Fact 44: It’s expected that by 2020 over 1 billion smart LED light bulbs will be connected to the internet.
- That’s up from a paltry 2.4 million bulbs connected to the internet via wires (Remember those?) way back in 2013.
Fact 45: The most used Smart Home tech is security-based with over 63% of smart tech users owning a smart lock or alarm.
- That compares to 62% owning a smart thermostat, 58% sporting smart lighting, and 56% making use of smart smoke detectors.
Fact 46: The Smart Home tech market is dominated by males.
- Let’s be honest, men, including me, love their tech. For this reason, over 60% of smart home purchases are made by men.
Fact 47: Smart home devices such as smart fridges and freezers can recommend to you what you should eat.
- Shockingly, they can even remind you not to binge on sugary food if you’re on a diet!
Fact 48: 34% of the Smart Home tech market is dominated by people that are 25-35 years old.
- Unsurprisingly, the smallest age group in the smart home market is people over the age of 55. They make up only 6.5% of the smart home tech market.
Fact 49: The largest adopter of smart home tech by country is the USA with 32% of households owning a smart device.
- Scandinavian countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Norway also have high adoption rates, at 22%, 22%, and 31% respectively. This is due to the increased use of smart thermostats in these cold countries.
Fact 50: Though Smart home tech is being pushed by huge companies such as Samsung and Amazon, market penetration of Smart Home devices is relatively low at 7.5% worldwide.
- This figure is expected to more than double to 19.5% by 2022.