Last week, SmartThings unveiled its smart home platform, which is designed to enhance the consumer's smart home experience while attracting “big name†developers to develop applications and devices for their platforms.
SmartThings Android and iOS apps have also recently been updated with a developer certification program that helps consumers understand the hardware, applications and services they buy directly through the SmartThings app.
However, these days, overshadowed by SmartThings's limelight news - rumors that Apple will launch smart home devices next week. Whether Apple's smart home products can pose a threat to rivals such as SmartThing is still uncertain.
SmartThings looks very smart
SmartThings announced that it will officially support some popular networking products, including the Jawbone Up24 smart wristband, Life360 home monitoring service and Quirky+GE appliance networking equipment. At the same time, the SmartThings platform includes smart lights from Kwikset, Schlage and Yale, as well as smart lights from Philips, GE and Sylvania, and general home automation accessories from Belkin, Lutron and more.
In addition, SmartThings will retain some early testing features, such as allowing developers to add support for Nest thermostats and DropCam Pro surveillance cameras through custom coding.
For the early smart home users and future mainstream consumers, the expansion of SmartThings will provide them with many options. Support for multiple mobile operating systems? to be observed! The developer certification program ensures that everything works together? to be observed! Work with more well-known devices, software and services? Yes! Keep it developing and let consumers use products from other unofficial support? Guarantee!
Apple enters the smart home field
Needless to say, Apple has enough strength to enter the smart home market. In addition to brand awareness, marketing channels, control of the retail experience, partnerships with large media and technology brands, and thousands of loyal developers' networks, Apple can do more to enhance the smart home user experience.
Depending on the integration of the operating system and the power of software design, Apple Smart Home products can be significantly improved in terms of initial settings (iniTIal setup) and general-purpose performance.
Last fall, Apple filed a patent application that mentions a smart home technology that tracks the user's geographic location. Nest users know that if you are standing for a long time, Nest's "automatic shutdown" mode can be confusing. Nest will treat the user's "still" as "away", and when you are still sleeping, it will lower the temperature, thinking that this will save you money. Relying on Apple's geolocation function can solve this problem and prevent you from being awake.
The game has just begun
How does SmartThings and other existing smart home platform providers survive after Apple enters? Opening is one of the choices. Apple is sure to be happy to see Nest (or Google) open its API restrictions, but let Apple open its web platform, whether from a competitive perspective or a security perspective, is not the style of the company.
If you let you search for Apple apps in the Google App Store, what's the result? no. In this way, you understand why smart home hardware manufacturers may be less willing to develop applications exclusively for Apple.
If you are a startup that makes smart doormats, which platform would you choose to reach a broader user base, Apple, Android, SmartThings, or all three?
Perhaps the following aspects will affect your decision: the more advanced user experience brought by Apple's smart home products, the product display space provided by Apple retail stores, and even a strong Apple will block the smart platform field in its own app store. Competitor. Of course, it is also possible that companies such as Google, Samsung, Microsoft, and even Ford have joined the game and played an important role.
The positive impact of Apple’s entry
Of course, if Apple enters the smart home, it will not only change the rules of the game, but also get the attention of the news headlines, which other companies can't do.
Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said that Apple's TV set-top boxes have sold 20 million units worldwide, and sales from content purchases have reached $1 billion. Apple's main competitor, Roku, only provided sales in the US. The company said its set-top box sales were 8 million units.
But considering the device usage, Apple is not as good as Roku. According to data from Parks Associates, about 37% of American households using streaming devices use Roku as their preferred product, while Apple only gets a 24% share.
Although Apple sells more TV set-top boxes, device usage is more important for Apple's financial performance. Alex Hawkinson, CEO of SmartThings, said he hopes to offer its platform for free one day. If the company can't make money on its platform right now, it's clear that he wants to gain market share in equipment, applications, and services, and make money by selling data.
If Apple enters the smart home market, it will definitely “erode†sales from SmartThing and other existing smart home manufacturers. However, Apple's entry will help raise awareness of the smart home market and drive sales across the market. With the advantages of a first-mover advantage, a growing partnership, and a focus on mainstream consumers and enthusiasts in the mobile space, SmartThings can take advantage of the positive impact of Apple's entry into the smart home space, just as Roku benefits from Apple TV.
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