Smart home

Categories of smart home devices shown on Amazon's website in April 2023.

The phrase smart home refers to home automation devices that have internet access. Home automation, a broader category, includes any device that can be monitored or controlled via wireless radio signals, not just those having internet access. Smart home devices have become common for voice recognition, lighting, keyless door entry, security cameras, sensors (for temperature, motion, water, etc.), on/off switches, thermostats, TV's and streaming devices, smoke detectors, robotic vacuum cleaners, lawn watering systems, and many more. Whether the device is powered by the electrical grid or by battery, if it uses the home Wi-Fi network and if an internet logon needs to be created to use it, then it is smart home technology.

Collectively, all the smart home devices on every home's Wi-Fi network helps to make up what is called the Internet of Things (IoT), a huge sea of sensors and control devices across the world that are capable of being accessed from afar via the internet. One of the key reasons such devices need internet access is so that the manufacturer can periodically download updated firmware to the device to keep it up-to-date. However, being available via the internet also means that such devices are, potentially, available for spying or hacking. Today, homes may contain dozens or even hundreds of such devices, and consumers may enjoy their benefits while knowing little about how they work, or even realizing that they are present.

Not all home automation is "smart"

Many remotely controllable devices do not require internet access. They may instead have physical control devices that use either RF (“Radio Frequency”) or IR (“Infrared”) beams, two different kinds of energy used in remote controls to communicate commands. Examples are a wireless doorbell, a battery-operated wildlife camera with Bluetooth file transfer to a computer, a programmable thermostat that is programmed on the device itself, garage door openers, and keyless car entry. Non-"smart" home automation may still have very serious security risks associated with it, because the control signals can be hijacked by bad actors with the right signaling equipment. Garage door openers are of particular note in this regard. Modern automobiles, in fact, are full of automation similar to home automation, and cars are hackable by bad actors in a number of ways. See Wikipedia's Automotive hacking article for more information.

A jungle of incompatible products that are similar in function

At present, consumers must make sure that the smart device they wish to use is specified to be compatible whichever phone/tablet operating system they use (Apple vs. Android). Since smart home products emerged in the absence of any standard, a morass of competing methods for networking, control and monitoring now exist. For some products, consumers may need to buy an expensive hub, or bridge, a device that is specific to one vendor. Products made by different manufacturers but performing the same function are typically not interoperable. Consumers often need to open a different app on their smartphone or tablet in order to control devices by each manufacturer. This may make it too expensive and awkward to try out competing devices, leaving consumers stuck with the product they bought originally or else having to add yet more apps to their phones.

Serious security concerns

Security for smart home products has been uneven and sometimes seriously inadequate. Smart thermostats which can monitor whether a home's occupants are present or not, entry-way locks, robotic vacuums that work with a map of the house, and other smart home devices can present very real dangers if hackers can access their data.

Matter, emerging standard in 2023: Secure, reliable, and interoperable

About ten years ago, industry consortiums formed to work on standards for smart home device communications, and their underlying wireless communications, which would make it possible for products from all vendors to work together seamlessly and provide fast performance, privacy, and security and would work even if there is not connection to the outside internet (i.e., no connection to "the cloud" or to servers). This resulted in a new standard called Matter, whose first version was finalized in Sept. 2022 and that is beginning to arrive in the marketplace during 2023. Most major vendors have committed to adhering to the basics of the emerging Matter standard within a few years. Another important, emerging standard for smart home devices is Thread, which specifies how the wireless communications among smart home devices will work when using the Matter standard.

Smart home product examples

Nest Learning Thermostat + remote room sensors

Nest app (L), Nest Learning Thermostat when someone stands in front of it (upper R), and Nest sensor on a wall (lower R)

The Nest Learning Thermostat is a very popular smart home device from Google with extraordinary capabilities. Its elegant physical user interface is styled after the old round thermostats in ubiquitous use since the 1950's, but every one of its complex functions can be reached through this physical interface should the internet not be available. Nest has been a subsidiary of Google since 2014, and Google required all Nest users to set up two-factor authentication using their Google accounts, so the product is relatively secure--but the app is also smart, and once you've authenticated on a given phone or tablet, it remains authenticated.

The Nest's big advancement over other thermostats, at the time it was introduced, was that it can tell whether the room it's in is occupied or not. To be more precise, it detects when someone moves in front of it (reaching out several feet). It also detects humidity and the outside temperature, and based on many parameters which the user can set, it is capable of truly intricate behavior, including programming itself to a schedule by observing how the household occupants choose to adjust the thermostat explicitly over a few weeks.

This model can also, optionally, use remote sensors (which must be bought separately) for different rooms so that, at any time, the temperature can be adjusted according to whichever room one wishes. The sensor also shows the ambient temperature and humidity in that room and how it compares with other rooms.

The Nest Learning Thermostat's most amazing advance feature is probably being able to detect, by means of the location of the smartphone of occupants, combined with watching movement in front of it, whether anyone is at home. Thus, it can automatically adjust temperatures while occupants are deemed to be away and then, once any occupant heads to the home or someone walks in front of the device, the temperatures will automatically go back to normal, all with no attention from the consumer at all. The big risk of enabling this behavior, of course, is that one's location could be tracked, and someone could tell exactly who is at home and who not at a given time. There can thus be great rewards for using it, along with some risk, and whether the consumer decides to trust Google and Nest to manage that data adequately for their safety is up to each individual, because the tracking feature is quite easy to turn off (and is in fact turned off by default, as is proper).

It can be challenging to figure out the advanced settings, and the Nest is renowned for creating uncomfortable, annoying temperatures during its "learning" phase. But the Nest can also be used by ignoring and not using most of the "fancy" features. It is drop-dead easy, in the app, to create a daily schedule for the thermostat and duplicate it across every day of the week. It is easy to have the house air handler stir the air for a few minutes per hour on a schedule, or not. It is easy to query and control the basic thermostat temperature setting via smart speakers such as a Google Hub or Amazon Alexa. It is easy to change the temperature or override the settings at any point either using the app or (for temperature setting only) voice control via a smart speaker.

Google/Nest also sells a version of its smart thermostat that looks similar but lacks the fancy learning features, but is still easily programmable by voice and app; this version is called simply the "Nest Thermostat". It cannot use remote sensors and lacks other advanced features but costs about half as much.

iRobot Roomba i7+ robotic vacuum cleaner

The iRobot app (L), Roomba at its docking station (upper R), Roomba with annoying lights taped over (middle R), and Roomba flipped over to remove various parts for cleaning or repair (lower R)

The iRobot Roomba i7+ robotic vacuum cleaner is an advanced smart device. It memorizes the layout of one's home and allows different rooms to be named so that it can be commanded to clean only certain rooms or areas. It also recognizes when its small dust reservoir is full and automatically returns to its docking tower to empty the reservoir before automatically resuming the vacuuming where it left off. Lastly, it is possible, and even easy, to take the Roomba apart and clean or replace almost any part without needing factory service.

A great deal of dismay has been expressed over the fact that Amazon acquired iRobot near the end of 2022. Consumers are concerned, perhaps rightly, that Amazon might not be trustworthy as a repository of the map of one's home, room by room.

Other issues with the Roomba are that it lacks "Do Not Disturb" hours. Many a consumer has been startled awake by the Roomba when a program intended to run at 2 pm actually was set for 2 am. Also, it has always-on lights lit on its tower and vacuum which can prevent a person from sleeping if the vacuum is being stored in a bedroom. And finally, those lights and the programmability mean that the iRobot is consuming a certain amount of "always on" electricity even when it is doing nothing. Some of these problems might be avoidable by the addition of a smart switch on the Roomba tower to remove it from the grid overnight, but it also means the Roomba will not charge during the "off" hours. The final comment about "Do Not Disturb" hours is that the Roomba's signal sounds are loud, perhaps intended for a noisy environment but definitely intended to capture attention. These sounds can be dismaying if they occur at an inconvenient juncture.

Despite all its conveniences, the Roomba cannot be allowed to run safely unless a person is around to supervise, lest a random shoe string choke the vacuum or it runs over an unexpected liquid and spreads that instead of cleaning up as one hopes. It is thus a good idea to keep all jobs "Disabled" until right before having the vacuum run. Also, it requires a four-hour recharge period between programs, and it also really needs a small amount of hand-cleaning after each job, mainly to remove any accumulated hair from the brushes on the under side of the vacuum. This need not be done every single time, depending on how much hair gets picked up, but if neglected for too many jobs, hair can strangle the moving parts of the vacuum.

The Roomba needs some lights on in the room where it vacuums because it uses optical sensors to locate and navigate around furniture, walls and doors.

Battery-powered electronic "walls" are available to segment a space into smaller rooms.

It is possible for the Roomba to "forget" the layout of the house, or even to lose the layout due to a software glitch. If that happens, one must allow the Roomba to run all over the house a few times without actually vacuuming to relearn the layout. This is also necessary if one rearranges the furniture drastically or if the consumer moves the location of the docking tower to another place. Recreating the home map may require days.

The big advantage of robotic vacuums such as the Roomba is that they are short (3.5" or less) and can run up under beds and sofas to vacuum. A room can be set up for vacuuming (perhaps by picking up a few small items off the floor) and then Roomba started and the vacuuming occurs without further human attention. So once the learning curve on the app and the quirks of the product are conquered, the Roomba can be a really useful tool for cleaning.

To get full use out of a robotic vacuum of any sort, it is necessary to secure any loose lamp cords or small items from the floor and possibly to exchange furniture that is too low for the vacuum to go under with equivalents with longer legs, or possibly add leg extenders to be high enough. These preparations only need to be done once, at the beginning of starting to use the vacuum.