In Russia, the smart device market is still developing. In 2021, only 7% of households had at least one such device
Unified technology of smart gadgets
Until recently, every system designersmart home created its own operating systems for its devices. And almost always they were incompatible with devices from other manufacturers. This greatly slowed down the market, because, in fact, the user was obliged to choose one single brand and build the entire household only on it. Many do not agree to this.
To balance the market, to give it a boostfurther development and to motivate buyers to install smart home systems, the world's largest technology manufacturers (Amazon, Google, Apple, Yandex, Sber and others) have agreed to jointly switch to a single Matter technology, on which all devices will operate.
The technology was officially launched in November 2022. And it is designed to make almost all devices on the market compatible with each other. This will entail several serious consequences at once:
- Competition in the market will reduce the cost of smart home devices.According to the EMR agency, the cost of complex systems and their components will fall by 1.5-2 times within a year or two after the introduction of Matter. A lower price will greatly increase the interest of potential users, and the number of purchases will grow even more.
- Households will no longer be dependent on onebrand. The user will be able to purchase a smart speaker from one company, a lighting control system from another, and a security system from a third. This will allow the configuration to be easily customized for any needs.
For now, predict the extent of change afterImplementing Matter is difficult because the technology is still in development. But one thing is clear: interest in smart devices for the home will increase many times over.
Artificial intelligence will make voice assistants smarter
With the advent of a new generation of neural networks that understand natural languages, a new era of voice assistants has begun.
In March 2023, an updated version of GPT-4 was released,which is currently considered the most advanced language model in the world. It can communicate almost at a human level and is capable of processing complex contextual queries. GPT-4's answer accuracy in English is 85.5%, and slightly less in Russian - 82.7%.
The researchers have already implemented the previous version of the GPT-3 neural network into a smart home system. And it has shown colossal improvements compared to classic assistants.
Russia has its own new neural networksgeneration. For example, YaLM 100B from Yandex or ruGPT-3 13B from Sber. So far, updated algorithms are only being tested in smart home systems, but in the next six months to a year, much smarter assistant devices will appear that will be able not only to execute commands, but also to understand more complex topics.
Helper robots will get more variety
Smart gadgets are becoming more and more personalized. And what is important is that users' attitudes towards them are changing. Many users, for example, perceive a robot vacuum cleaner as a pet.
Increasingly, brands are launching devices on the marketnot only functional but also cute to form an emotional connection with the consumer. For example, the Samsung Jet Bot AI+ robot vacuum cleaner can recognize objects using artificial intelligence. And Amazon released the Astro home robot two years ago, equipped with three wheels and a camera to monitor the house.
Another illustrative example is the Wink robot,which was introduced by Argodesigh in November 2022. Like a regular voice assistant, it can control devices in your home on command. You can point at a lamp and say, "Turn on that light," and it will do it.
In addition, with the help of movements of the stand and cameraThe device also simulates emotions. It can nod and shake its head, cuddle, and even wink. Such emotional attachment is expected to significantly increase sales of robots and allow them to be more deeply personalized.
Smart lighting will help you save
Controlled lighting systems are just gaining popularity in Russia. At the same time, they can now do much more than just turn on lighting on command.
Modern smart light bulbs are capable of regulatinglighting intensity depending on the weather and a person's activities, and also turn off lights and electrical appliances when no one is home. Researchers claim that this function alone can reduce lighting costs by 25-35%, and as a result, you will have to pay 5-10% less for electricity.
Moreover, smart lighting today can maintain the atmosphere in the room, flicker to the music and even adjust to the mood of the owner. These features will become even more popular in the coming years.
Wi-Fi 6 in apartments will expand the ecosystem of IoT gadgets
Wi-Fi 6 wireless standard approved yetin 2021, but it has only just reached the mass market. In addition to the standard frequencies of 2.4 and 5 GHz, devices will use additional frequencies from 1 to 7 GHz. This will significantly increase network bandwidth and the number of connected devices.
In a practical sense, with Wi-Fi 6 you cancreate a complete IoT ecosystem in the home, consisting of several hundred individual sensors and devices. At the same time, the frequencies of the signals of different devices will not interfere with each other and suppress the connections of neighbors.
The rise of hi-tech health devices
Markets for Health and Wellness smart devices are growingat a huge pace. Insider Intelligence analysts believe that by 2028 their capitalization will be $187.6 billion. This is 4.5 times more than in 2020.
Already, there are two main areas in which smart gadgets for health will develop:
- For diagnosis and treatment. This includes devices for analyzing glucose inblood, heart rate monitoring or other body parameters. In addition, special ingestible sensors in the form of capsules are already used in diagnostics, which collect data on the health of internal organs from the inside. They can also be part of the smart home ecosystem as separate software that recognizes signs of depression or monitors hand hygiene.
- For sports and well-being. These are a variety of smart watches and bracelets, scales,humidifiers that are built into the overall ecosystem of the house and work inside it. They are aimed at creating a comfortable atmosphere for relaxation and increasing the effectiveness of sports.
In Russia, the Health Tech market is now popularonly watches and bracelets. But in the next few years, the situation will change towards diversity. At the same time, in medicine, the introduction of smart devices may take longer than the foreseeable five years.
Door locks with remote control and one-time codes
The first signs of using smart doorbellswe already see locks in international apartment rental services like Airbnb. Such a gadget allows the landlord to avoid contact with tenants at all: they receive not keys to the apartment, but a digital code that is valid for a certain amount of time.
This is an ingenious option in terms of convenience and security. After all, if there are no physical keys, then it is simply impossible to make a duplicate or lose them.
So far, the installation of smart door locks in Russia— these are isolated cases. But we expect that in the next five years, smart code locks will be actively introduced into the hotel business and the apartment rental market. And over time, this technology will be adapted for ordinary apartments and houses. Such locks will be especially useful for owners of luxury houses where visiting workers work: cleaners, housekeepers, tutors, couriers and nannies.
The Russian market of smart devices - what will it be like in five years?
The next few years will see us in totalrethinking smart gadgets in Russia. They will become more accessible and convenient for implementation in your own home, and the market will see many times more diverse devices for creating home ecosystems.
Russians will stop looking at smart systemshomes as toys for the rich and will gradually introduce them into their homes. First as smart speakers, and then IoT systems will enter the everyday life of citizens more and more.
The prospects are great:in five years, the smart device market in Russia is capable of growing threefold. At the same time, many new developments will be the brainchild of Russian companies, which will further increase the interest and prospects of the technology for ordinary citizens.
Read more:
Oldest Cyrillic text ever found
"Webb" found traces of incredibly huge stars: they died at the dawn of the universe
Strange sounds recorded in the Earth's stratosphere: how scientists are trying to understand their nature
</ p>Cover photo: Image by Freepik