In Las Vegas, at CES 2015, among the many new technologies, you can see a remarkable promotion of the so-called Internet of Things. Representatives of some of the most important technology companies made statements concerning the possibility to connect to the Internet your household appliances and other devices. According to their indications, home automation is no longer a niche for fans but will be in all homes.
They no longer speak of the coming years but the next few months, but how many people will really start using the possibilities of communication via the Internet with their own washing machine and other devices? For many companies the Internet of Things can be a great economic opportunity but what about the potential users?
Boo-Keun Yoon (photo ©SamsungTomorrow) is the CEO of Samsung Electronics, one of the technology giants most involved in promoting the Internet of Things as a revolution now underway. At the opening of CES 2015 he held a presentation of the company’s programs, which are really ambitious. According to plans, within five years all Samsung products will be connected to the Internet.
One of the problems faced by Boo-Keun Yoon in his speech is that of communication among the various devices. It’s useless to have them all communicating via the Internet if they then use incompatible protocols. It’s like having people who speak different languages so they can’t understand each other: they can’t work together.
Samsung invited the other companies interested in home automation field to reach an agreement to create communication standards that allow any device to communicate with those of other manufacturers. In August 2014, Samsung bought SmartThings, a company that is creating an open platform for the Internet of Things, but there must be a common platform for all companies to really have a home automation revolution.
This is a problem partly technical and partly of good will on the part of companies to work on quality standards. There are other problems in the Internet of Things, partly technical and partly related to the ability of ordinary people to adapt quickly to much more sophisticated home appliances. Some problems are really delicate, such as security and the risk that users become increasingly used instead of using more those new smart devices.
Even in recent months, systems of large companies were penetrated by computer pirates. How can we expect that our refrigerator is accessible only by us? Another concern is privacy, an issue already hot on the Internet. It can be helpful to see what we’ve got in our fridge from our office but if the data is used by the manufacturer to send advertising of some supermarket we end up being used.
The Internet of Things is an opportunity and a lot of companies are working home automation products. Almost exactly a year ago, Google also got into that field by acquiring Nest Labs. However, it must be an opportunity also for ordinary people who can’t handle themselves among technical problems, security and privacy.
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