The Smart Home: Where it Stands at Year’s End

The Smart Home: Where it Stands at Year’s End

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Up until recently, the notion of a smart home had been a sci-fi fantasy, with tech enthusiasts eagerly awaiting the day their kitchens or living rooms resemble the deck of the Starship Enterprise. To the joy of many, 2017 was labeled “The Year of the Smart Home,” when smart home products that had, up until this point, been popular with niche tech groups and the early adopter crowd would finally make it big in the mainstream market. The year began with an abundance of connected, “smart things” at CES in January – from washer/dryer units and refrigerators, to security cameras and thermostats – many of which incorporated built-in Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant voice control capabilities. But overall, how did smart home products live up to the hype in 2017?

 

It was the introduction of the Amazon Echo Smart Speaker back in 2014 that triggered interest in mainstream smart home gadgets. For the first time, the market had an inexpensive, easy-to-use, beneficial smart product everyone in the home could enjoy. Since then, tech companies and manufacturers have been playing “catch up,” some fairly successfully, like Google, and othersnot so much. With the introduction and influx of smart speakers, other connected products, like Philips Hue Smart Lighting, have gained popularity because they serve as perfect additions to the Echo connected things ecosystem. And, thanks to Amazon’s Echo, voice control has now become the key remote interface within the home.

 

Media research group, Kagan, reports that the number of smart homes in the U.S. grew to over 15 million by the end of last year, which equated to about 12.5% of all U.S. households. According to another report, 26.5% of all U.S. households in 2017 now have at least one smart home product.

 

However, in 2017, consumers are still skeptical about the security of these pricey gadgets. And in a year full of cyber-security disasters, homeowners are growing more anxious about the safety of these products, with a common fear amongst consumers being that intelligent alarm systems and locks can be easily hacked by intruders and that smart TVs and speakers will spy or eavesdrop on unsuspecting users. But according to Business Insider, 2017 smart home adoption problems don’t stem from security issues, but rather, from issues that have plagued these products since the get-go: “high prices, technological fragmentation, and consumers’ lack of a perceived benefit from the devices.”

 

Although prices are steadily dropping, there hasn’t been a strong enough demand for these products to justify the cost. Consumer awareness of the value of smart home products is helping somewhat, but there are plenty of challenges still facing these device brands and manufacturers, such as interoperability issues, security, and overall usability. In 2017, the connected living expanded significantly, and in 2018, it’s expected to continue to grow steadily in the U.S., driven by an expanding number of connected, smart devices in the market.

Improving the Smart Home Hub

Improving the Smart Home Hub

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It’s a challenge for smart home owners to gather all of their devices together under one simple, straightforward interface, but smart home hubs promise an easy way to bring isolated smart devices together. There are many smart home hubs out there, some of which now serve multiple purposes: the Amazon Echo is both a smart home hub and a voice activated smart speaker, while the Samsung Connect Home doubles as a router. When choosing a smart home hub, users tend to consider variables such as compatibility to their current smart home devices, ease of use, and unique features (such as voice control) to help them decide which hub is right for them. But how can smart home hub manufacturers help meet the demand of their users and ensure the technology’s longevity in the marketplace? And how can consumer electronics manufacturers help bridge the islands that pervade smart home entertainment and create hub-friendly solutions?

 

Before the advent of smart speakers, the best reason to invest in a smart home hub was to unify multiple communication protocols under one platform. Smart home hubs are designed to work across many different wireless standards, including Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Bluetooth. So if you have devices that work on different standards, a hub will most likely allow you to control them all from one centralized location, i.e., the hub’s app (note: not all smart home hubs work with every smart home device). But today, is this still enough of reason to spend upwards of hundreds of dollars on a hub? To most, the answer is ‘no.’ In a CNET article titled: “The only way to save the smart home hub is to kill it,” contributor David Priest contends that “folding the signal translation and automation capabilities of a hub into another essential device that people already buy — be it a router, TV or perhaps even security camera –…moves standalone hubs out of the middleman position in the smart home. As the market continues to develop, customers will be less inclined to spend over $100 on a device that does nothing in and of itself besides helping two other devices communicate…the smart home hub will only survive if it’s reincarnated as something more.”

 

That’s why products like the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Samsung Connect Home are so appealing to consumers: they do so much more than just link up your solitary smart devices. Launched in 2014, the Echo was the first mass market voice-controlled smart home hub, and since then, other companies like Google and Apple have jumped on the bandwagon. Besides it being able to connect to a plethora of smart devices (with more and more being added each quarter) which you can control through voice commands, the Echo is also an excellent standalone smart speaker, which makes it that much more appealing to consumers. What traditional smart home hubs do really well (that devices like an Echo or Google Home do not) is offer better scheduling and automation controls, so there are some reasons why a user may opt for something other than an Echo or HomePod. But in order to stay relevant, smart home hub manufacturers must follow the “more bang for your buck” model and combine unique features (such as voice control or even just a first-class app) with the traditional hub.

 

But what about from the consumer electronics end – the entertainment devices users want to connect to a central hub, such as wireless speakers? Combining individual entertainment systems to work together to create a truly connected smart home is non trivial – it requires precise synchronization, low latency for lip sync and a general reliability over standard Wi-Fi (the best and most commonly used communication protocol for the home.) Something like this hasn’t been done before – until now.

 

Blackfire Research is making the smart home smarter by helping consumer electronics manufacturers get their products off isolated entertainment islands and create hub-friendly solutions. Our revolutionary new protocol, The Blackfire Realtime Entertainment Distribution (RED) framework, allows users to mix and match entertainment devices – from multiple brands that are Blackfire enabled – to create a whole home entertainment system. With the Blackfire RED framework embedded in wireless speakers and the smart home’s voice-activated smart speaker (such as an Echo or a Dot), users can finally enjoy a truly connected home. With Alexa, you can ask any Blackfire enabled device to play music, wirelessly and synchronously throughout the home, in groups and on multiple devices. The Blackfire RED framework also supports low latency and multi-channel, which other wireless solutions do not.

 

The Blackfire RED framework is the most synchronous, reliable, and cost effective wireless solution on the market. Voice service solutions require a high performance, multi-room solution like the Blackfire RED framework, which can allow multiple devices to respond to voice commands, simultaneously, and can be integrated into a broad spectrum of high quality voice service applications.

 

The Blackfire RED framework enhances the smart home hub and does what no other solution has done before. Harman Kardon, Pioneer, and Onkyo have stepped into the future by leveraging Blackfire’s technology in over 100 new products this year alone. Now is your chance. Join the Blackfire Revolution today.

Wireless Charging Fuels the Smart Home of the Future

Wireless Charging Fuels the Smart Home of the Future

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Last week, we spoke about the latest iPhones all (finally) supporting wireless charging and Apple’s commitment to the Qi wireless charging standard. But the sort of wireless charging that Apple has chosen to back isn’t truly a wireless solution, since you still have to use a charging mat (plugged into an outlet), and your device must be placed on the mat in order for it to charge. However, there are other wireless charging options on the market that are truly wireless.

 

One such company is called Energous, a Silicon Valley-based company whose WattUp wire-free charging technology is gaining a lot of buzz. Energous supplies chips to manufacturers that can be integrated into a wide variety of devices (such as smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and more) that enable wireless power transmission at short, medium, and long distance ranges – the longest of which can bolster energy from up to 15 feet in any direction. Energous uses a Radio Frequency (RF) system, so the experience of charging your devices will feel similar to using a router for Wi-Fi. According to their website: “A WattUp transmitter, or Power Router, sends energy via a Radio Frequency (RF) signal to your WattUp-enabled electronic devices when requested. A WattUp receiver in each device converts that signal into battery power.” To learn more about Energous in action, check out this article about their CES 2017 exhibition.  

 

Another company, Ossia, with their Cota Wireless Power technology, envisions a world in which you walk into your home, an airport, a coffee shop, even a train – and your devices automatically begin to charge. The system comprises of a transmitter, a receiver, and software. The transmitter comes in many different forms: from a smartspeaker-looking cylinder, to a ceiling tile. The receiver is a microchip that can be embedded into numerous devices, which mostly lies dormant, but gets triggered when a Cota receiver sends it a packet of information indicating a need for charge. The software then directs the charge from the transmitter to the receiver’s location, even if there’s movement. Cota uses the same frequency as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and can charge multiple devices at once.

 

Finally, there is Wi-Charge, which just received FDA approval to sell their products in the US. Wi-Charge works differently than Energous and Ossia because it uses infrared beams to transmit power as opposed to an RF system. The range for their charge is up to 10 meters indoors, with 3-4 watts of power per device. In order for the technology to work, your device needs to be in, what they call, the “line-of-sight” (i.e. visible to the transmitter). The first phase of their operations will use dongles or cases attached to your device equipped with the receiver. In the future, receivers will be fitted inside devices, like we’ve seen with Energous and Ossia. The current Wi-Charge charging stations double as lamps, but in the future, the company wants to equip transmitters into ceiling light fixtures in office buildings and homes.

 

While Apple was praised for choosing to implement a fairly ubiquitous wireless charging standard into their latest iPhones, their choice was actually quite underwhelming. Apple is known for being at the forefront of innovation. Because they waited so long to jump on the wireless charging wagon, many expected them to come out with something better than a technology that’s been standard on Android phones for years. They didn’t. Instead, startups like Energous, Ossia, and Wi-Charge now stand at the forefront of wireless charging innovation.

 

Wireless charging is essential to the smart home of the future because the smart home of the future is wireless. From the smart speaker boom to advances in wireless, multiroom audio, this year has brought hi-tech products into the mainstream market, fueling the growth of the smart home sphere. With the introduction of true wireless charging into homes, offices, and public spaces, we’re one step closer to a truly connected world.

The Best Way to Avoid Buffering

The Best Way to Avoid Buffering

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A new neural network AI from MIT CSAIL has been making headlines recently for using machine learning to solve some issues associated with buffering. We’ve all experienced buffering before, either in the form of pixilation, long wait times while loading a video or audio file, and everyone’s favorite nemesis: the spinning pinwheel of death. Buffering occurs because it’s impossible for your computer (or TV) to receive data all in one lump for immediate playback. Therefore, data is broken up into smaller packets and sent to its destination, sequentially. So while you’re enjoying your favorite Spotify playlist played to wireless speakers throughout your home, or streaming the latest episode of Game of Thrones in your living room, your entertainment media will always be sent bit by bit. If all goes well, you’ll never notice this is even happening. But more often than not, you’ll experience some sort of indication of file buffering. If there isn’t enough bandwidth, you’ll either experience pixilation, longer buffering times, or drop outs because your network can’t transmit data fast enough to maintain a sufficient “buffer.”

 

Essentially, what MIT CSAIL’s AI, dubbed the “Pensieve” neural network, does is use machine learning to switch between pixilation and buffering so your videos aren’t over buffering when they don’t need to, or pixelating when they don’t need to. According to MIT, the neural network will tune itself over time based on a system of rewards and penalties, allowing streaming services to customise this for their content—with priorities for buffering or resolution. If the streaming service is able to predict that a user watching a video on a handheld device is about to walk into a poor connectivity area, the system will be able to reduce the streaming resolution sufficiently, creating enough of a buffer for (potentially) stutter-free streaming (livemint). This is all fine and good, but it’s essentially like putting a Band-Aid on a festering wound: it may cover up the problem, but it by no way solves the underlying issue.

 

The real problem with buffering lies with your WiFi network. Conventional WiFi runs on TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), designed in the 1960’s for transferring files down wired Ethernet lines – certainly not for streaming real-time video and wireless audio throughout the Smart Home. (For more information on the shortcomings of TCP, check out this blog post). As long as your WiFi runs on this outdated protocol, it doesn’t matter what techniques are being innovated to combat the annoyance of buffering – the cause of the issue still needs to be addressed, not the symptoms.

 

Blackfire Research understands this. That is why we developed Real-Time Packet Management (RPM), the Blackfire Research solution to buffering. For whole home, wireless audio, RPM uses a special multipoint, real-time feedback signal from each speaker to monitor the effects of noise on the audio data stream, allowing for a much shorter queue and much less buffering. RPM is part of the Blackfire Realtime Entertainment Distribution (RED) framework, a revolutionary new protocol designed to stream both HD 5.1 audio and 4K video, simultaneously, across multiple devices around your home- all over the standard WiFi – with precise synchronization, low latency for lip sync, and overall reliability.

 

RPM can be found in any Blackfire powered device. Partnering with Blackfire Research means you’re ahead of the pack, and most of all, one step closer to defeating your nemesis: that darn spinning pinwheel of death.

Making the Smart Home Smarter

Making the Smart Home Smarter

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In his entertaining recent editorial, CNBC Technology Product Editor, Todd Haselton, experienced, firsthand, the frustration that many smart home enthusiasts have endured for a long time: smart home products that don’t work with one another. Typically, manufacturers don’t want their customers to “mix and match” products, but rather, they “encourage” them to stay loyal to their brand by deliberately limiting compatibility with competitors. But what manufacturers don’t realize is that these “technology islands” are actually discouraging potential users from buying any smart home products at all. Aside from the more geeky early adopters (ok, my hand’s up), smart home gadget users don’t want to invest in a brand and have that brand become obsolete within the next few years (i.e. “choose wrong”) so many people just aren’t choosing at all. As Haselton points out: “How do you choose which one to go with? It’s almost like the VHS vs. Betamax wars.”

 

A simple solution to this problem, as Haselton notes, is “one single standard that works for everything.” At Blackfire Research, we’ve done just that. A few years back, Blackfire Research founder and CEO, Ravi Rajapakse, became frustrated – much like Haselton himself and countless other smart home gadget lovers – when he realized that there was no seamless way to transfer and share entertainment media throughout his own home. What was once a personal project to create a multi-room entertainment system soon became ten years of research into a revolutionary new protocol, which we call The Blackfire Realtime Entertainment Distribution (RED) framework. The Blackfire RED framework can stream both HD 5.1 audio and 4K video, simultaneously, across multiple devices – all over the standard WiFi you already have. As well as connecting light bulbs, thermostats and door locks, Blackfire also works as a bridge between your smart home and your entertainment systems – with precise synchronization, low latency for lip sync, and overall reliability. Because ultimately, that is what smart home owners want – to mix and match devices while having their music and movies available to them anywhere in the home.

 

Oh yeah, did we mention that Blackfire enabled products are compatible with each other, even across brands? Just look for our logo on select Harman/Kardon, Onkyo, Pioneer, Integra, and HTC devices. It’s just one of the many ways Blackfire Research is making the smart home a whole lot smarter.