Nokia Smart Home Solution Makes Smart Home Functions Easier to Use

It wasn't so long ago that making a smart home was almost as arduous a task as making a smart child. It took practice, study, and even some trial and error. In fact, it is not hard to remember back to when Andrew Schmitt of Traverse City, Michigan, smart home setup was so difficult a task it required both an iPhone (News - Alert) and iPad to operate. A lot of separate apps meant confusion, and that's a point Nokia is ready to help with thanks to its new smart home solution.

Nokia's Smart Home solution allows users to set up a smart home with a variety of different connected devices, plugs and sensors to create a complete solution better able to operate from one platform. Since all these connections can be addressed, customers can get access to services ranging from home security to smart metering. In turn, mobile service providers can offer new services to current customers and improve a revenue stream from there.

Nokia (News - Alert)'s Smart Home Solution is simplification in three parts:

1. There is a device that takes the place of an Optical Network Terminal (ONT), which allows for the connectivity to take place.
2. A mobile app serves as the user interface.
3. A complete Internet of Things management platform allows the information to be collected and passed on, and commands to come from the user interface, making a complete smart home system.

ABI Research (News - Alert)'s research director for smart home Jonathan Collins noted: “The broad Smart Home market is still fairly young. As a leading IoT segment there is clear potential for rapid growth and with that new revenue opportunities for network operators. However, critical to growth will be providing interoperability between myriad devices. Increasingly operators must ensure that the residential smart home device they deploy can support multiple protocols in a single device, including Wi-Fi, ZigBee (News - Alert) and Z-Wave.”

With the smart home market projected to reach $39 billion between 2015 and 2020, a growth rate of around 24 percent, it's easy to see why service providers want a piece of that market.  Customers are eager to get in as well.  Between the peace-of-mind of home security cameras viewable from anywhere provide, and the ability to shut off devices inadvertently left on after leaving the home, there's a lot to like in the smart home. Throw in improved comfort—being able to dial down heat and air conditioning when not home and fire it up again before arriving—and the picture only brightens.

Ease-of-use has been one of the challenges holding back smart home adoption.  Hence, capabilities that enable customers to literally and figuratively “feel at home” are going to be welcomed with warm fingers.