Everything’s smarter in Europe
www.theverge.com
From smart homes to folding phones, here’s what we expect to see at the IFA trade show next week.

The article discusses expectations for smart home announcements at the upcoming IFA tech show in Berlin. While companies may unveil new smart speakers, cameras and robot vacuums, the smart home remains fragmented as the Matter interoperability standard has yet to fully deliver on integrating devices. The author argues the industry needs to provide more utility than novelty by allowing different smart devices to work together seamlessly. Examples mentioned include lights notifying users of doorbell activity or a robot vacuum taking on multiple household chores autonomously. Overall, the smart home needs solutions that are essential rather than just novel if consumers are to see the value beyond the initial cool factor.

    • philpo@feddit.de
      1·
      1 year ago

      The system environment does have radio based components - but you are right, some things cannot be achieved without deep integration with the house. But yeah, I rented for a long time and while I used radio based systems it is not as good. My hope is that it does get common enough that more and more landlords adopt it,at least for the midrange segment. We do actually provide some limited integration for a small apartment we rent out but currently it’s not something people care about tbh and the law here is a bit problematic in that regard, but that’s a very local problem.

        • philpo@feddit.de
          3·
          1 year ago

          Actually our building is much older…But as written elsewhere, we had to renew everything anyway. I used Homematic before switching over to KNX (/KNX:RF) and while it was okay for a rental (and can do much more than people think) it’s still clunky unless you use HA as an additional layer and you waste a lot on batteries. But still, better than nothing.