ANALYSIS: SMART HOME Home Technology
Smarten up! 30
Today’s homes are more connected than ever and smart devices have seamlessly blended in with our everyday lives – from dimming the lights by voice command to remote security monitoring from our phones. There’s a gadget for everything. Jack Cheeseman investigates.
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ast year the number of smart homes in the UK increased from 4.4 million to 5.7 million, reflecting an annual growth rate of 30 per cent, according to Statista. By 2027, the smart home count is set to soar to 15.1 million homes, meaning that more than half of households will feature smart home technology by this time. When most people think of smart tech, they think of smart speakers – namely Amazon Alexa or Google Home. But these little table- top gadgets do so much more than just play music nowadays; they have opened up a seemingly endless amount of possibilities for consumers to interact with their homes. In October 2022, Matter was first launched by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA). Matter is a common language for smart home devices that aims to
simplify the process of purchasing, setting up, and using connected gadgets; it was developed by major players in the smart home industry, including Amazon, Apple, Google and Samsung. The platform means that users shouldn’t need to worry if their smart bulb will work with their smartphone or if their smart dishwasher will listen to their smart speaker. If it works with Matter, it should work with any Matter-enabled smart home platform or device. Currently only a handful of manufacturers have added Matter support for their devices, and while all the major platforms support some device types, none support all of them together. That said, the future for Matter-enabled smart homes looks very exciting. An important recent step for the platform was allowing control of energy management devices, including thermostats and other heating/cooling controllers.
tado is one of them. The German manufacturer of intelligent home energy management solutions offers households one simple platform to control their energy consumption and costs, while also driving the green energy transition. The company’s latest venture is the new tado X range of Smart Thermostats and Sensors, Smart Radiator Thermostats and Heat Pump Optimiser X – said to save homeowners on average 19 per cent on their heating bills.
Running on Matter over a Thread mesh network, tado X is interoperable with other smart home products and platforms and can be controlled by Alexa, Google and Apple Home. Its energy management features include: Smart Scheduling, Geofencing to turn down the heating when everyone is away, Open Window Detection, Energy IQ information and tips on cutting consumption, Weather Adaptation and Air Comfort.
“Our tado X range of products brings simplicity for smart heating to life,” explains CPO and Co-Founder, Christian Deilmann. “In the past smart thermostats were largely adopted by those focused on smart tech, but tado X makes these devices accessible to many more people and will have a bigger impact on the renewable energy transition.”
The Tado X Smart Thermostat & app
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