433.1 million smart home devices were shipped worldwide last year, according to IDC, and that number is expected to swell to 939.7 million devices in 2022. 24% of UK homes now own a smart home device, and a third of US consumers own two or more smart devices.
It’s a new and exciting frontier, the smart home, promising comfort and convenience on a level we’ve never seen before. But what is a smart home really like?
To find out, we’re taking a Connected Home tour of smart homes around the world. Our first stops: London and Helsinki.
What we found doesn’t look as different on the surface as you might think. Otherwise conventional homes, these living spaces are set apart by the various cutting edge connected devices they’ve been outfitted with. From smart security cameras and smoke detectors to smart TVs, lights and doorbells, these devices make tasks a little more convenient, monitor the health and security of the home environment, and of course, provide entertainment.
Each homeowner has a passion for tech, but they’re also realistic about the risks of connecting their home to the Internet of Things.
“I think people should be aware that every network device that they bring into their home, whether it be a smart camera or even a smart television, these are extra ways in potentially, for somebody to get into your home,” says smart home occupant Jay Garrett of London. ”And the same way that you protect your doors and windows, you need something to protect your Internet of Things, your connected devices, your smart home devices.”
For both homes, the protection of choice is F-Secure SENSE, the WiFi router that secures every device in your home from online threats.
”The speed that IoT is growing at seems to be faster than the ways to protect it,” says Garrett. ”For me, I don’t have a lot of time to be hardening my network, so I need something like SENSE for the really easy solve.”
So while we still have a long way to go until smart homes are actually as futuristic as The Jetsons, it’s no myth that they still need to be protected from futuristic-seeming threats that actually can and do happen here and now.
Banner image courtesy MEDION Pressestelle, flickr.com
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