Bryan Wolfe September 30, 2016 5 minutes
The smart home industry in 2016 looks much different than it did only five years ago when Nest introduced its first-generation smart thermostat. No doubt, the industry will change again half a decade from now.
It’s time to jump into your time machine. You’re about to uncover what could be the biggest trends in the smart home industry in 2021 and the products you might be using.
Emerging Trends in Home Automation
The smart home of the future is expected to include more energy efficient products controlled by localized virtual assistants. Tomorrow’s homes will also be safer, which is particularly good for aging populations.
Siri Says
Every tech giant offers a digital voice assistant, from Apple’s Siri to Microsoft’s Cortana to Amazon’s Alexa. Right now, these voice assistants require an active web connection and external data to work. In the future, smartphones, tablets, and wearables will feature local voice assistants. In doing so, they will save battery life and reduce many of the privacy concerns some have about those services.7 Creative Uses for Amazon Echo and Alexa 7 Creative Uses for Amazon Echo and AlexaYou’ve seen the ads starring Alec Baldwin, but you're still not sure what Amazon Echo does or whether you need one in your home. We’re about to find out.READ MORE
Earlier this year, MIT researchers unveiled a computer chip optimized for deep-learning. Code-named “Eyeriss”, the chip could allow mobile devices to perform such tasks as natural language processing and facial recognition without going online.
As Vivienne Sze, the Emanuel E. Landsman Career Development Assistant Professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science explains:
You can imagine that if you can bring that functionality to your cell phone or embedded devices, you could still operate even if you don’t have a
