Smart homes exist to make our lives easier: automating household chores like floor cleaning with a robot vacuum, saving energy by having smart lights turn on or off automatically when you enter a room, and creating a more comfortable atmosphere with a smart thermostat. In an ideal world, you'd manage all of this in one place and easily share control with your family.
While setup and performance have improved dramatically over the last few years, smart homes still have their issues. If your device becomes unresponsive when you need it for a task, these issues can ruin your day just as easily as they can make your day more efficient. And with various wireless protocols, hubs are required. Still, there are plenty of new devices and expanding categories like accessible smart blinds and generative AI integration. So we surveyed the staff at Tom's Guide to ask where they think smart home technology is headed and what they want from their smart home in the future. Read on for their answers.
The issue will be important
Hunter Fenoll
Smart Home Editor
When it comes to smart home platforms, I like diversity. At night, I use my iPhone to turn off the Kasa smart plug connected to my bedroom floor lamp. Then I tell Alexa to run a Goodnight routine to lock the house and turn on the security system. And while I sleep, the Google Nest Hub uses radar and microphones to track the quality of my sleep. All of this is fragmented by different apps and services that need to be linked to each smart home platform. The Universal Matter Protocol already makes it possible to discover and control devices regardless of smart home platform, but more work needs to be done by gadget makers.
I would be more satisfied with a seamless smart home than an AI telling me how to cook a meal or a robot butler following my commands. I envision a single-panel touchscreen experience, complete with widgets, live camera feeds, and device controls that are just a tap away, like the Echo Hub offers today. But instead of being tied to an Alexa smart home, I would be able to view my Nest Cam (battery-powered) and HomeKit-only video doorbell from one place. Amazon already offers early Matter casting, but imagine being able to share content from your phone to any screen: your laptop, TV, smart display, or even a gaming system. The freedom of choice and discoverability to instantly see and control your devices from anywhere will be what I most appreciate in the coming years.
The Ambient Smart Home is the Only Smart Home
Kate Kozuch
Editor-in-chief
The limitations of today's smart homes stem from a continued reliance on manual control. Unless you're adept at setting up routines so that the action or input of one smart home device simultaneously activates others, you're left fumbling around between apps and voice assistant commands. The more people who share the same home, the more complicated it becomes.
Instead, I want smart homes to have more intelligent ambient actions. What if your smart home could periodically and accurately predict what you want based on your habits, daily schedule, and even sensor data from your smartwatch? It could automatically manage energy usage based on grid demand and wait until the right time to run the dishwasher or washing machine. It could lower the temperature just by sensing that the room is getting warmer as more people join in. It could even automatically preheat the oven and scan the ingredients in the fridge when I open a recipe on the smart display. Simply put, the perfect smart home should know what to do before I act on it.
It all starts in the heart of your living room
Despite the “smart TV” moniker, our displays don't do much beyond acting as a window into the best streaming services and various gaming platforms. So what if they could do more? Ditch the Amazon Echo or Google Nest Hub in favor of the one thing that's always going to be present in your living space: your TV.
It's no surprise that the concept has already garnered attention from many home entertainment solutions experts, most notably Google TV executive Rob Caruso: As TV speakers and chipsets continue to evolve, displays will soon become a central part of the home's smart ecosystem.
Companies like Samsung and LG are already bringing smart home concepts into their 2024 TV interfaces, and they'll only get better over time with more streamlined ambient controls, always-on displays, AI enhancements, and interoperability between all your devices.
Why does television only function as a gateway to entertainment? Shouldn't it be able to do so much more for us? I think so, but there are certainly many concerns about this idea.
It should be as easy as turning on a light
Mike Prospero
Editor in Chief, USA
I've tried out a lot of smart home devices at home, and thanks to my enthusiasm as an early adopter, I'm a little more tolerant when something doesn't work the way I expect it to right away. My wife is less tolerant and more sensible. She quickly gets annoyed when smart lights don't switch on right away, smart blinds don't open or close properly, or Alexa takes too long to respond appropriately.
And we suspect the majority of consumers wondering whether to add a smart home device are in a similar situation: their smart lights, locks, and switches need to work just as well when the internet is down, and be just as fast as the outdated devices they're replacing.
When it comes to smart assistants, her patience is even less: Every time Alexa responds from the wrong room, doesn't do what I want, or asks if I want to hear what else it can do, I get a dirty look, as if to say, “Do you really need this in your home?”
Smart home devices need to not only get smarter, but also be as reliable as the devices they replace. We're getting there, but we're not there yet.
You don't even have to think about it
At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this year, two major home appliance manufacturers demonstrated AI-powered mini robots that could connect to your smart home and act as virtual butlers, controlling and monitoring everything.
The world of artificial intelligence itself is moving towards a similar system, where a controlling AI sends out niche, customized models to perform tasks on your behalf, like booking a flight, contacting family, coordinating schedules, etc. This is known as Agent AI, and an early version of it has been demonstrated in Apple's new Siri.
As these agents get smarter, they will integrate with appliances, online shopping services, and even maintenance providers, taking full control of your household and smart home management — once you buy and set up your AI butler, you won't even have to think about it.
This means we could have a more deeply integrated smart home, where your fridge can virtually talk to your oven, sharing information about performance, how long food has been left out, the impact on cook time, etc. Your coffee maker could talk to your thermostat about the ambient temperature, with an AI butler to make sure it all works as efficiently as possible.
Getting wiser with age
John Velasco
Senior Editor
The biggest thing I've learned from testing smart home devices is that they provide added convenience, and while most of the devices we see today are tailored to the needs of modern families, one underserved area that deserves more attention is the aging population.
Family dynamics are very different than they were a few decades ago, with many elderly parents living far away from their children and extended family. For example, the Baby Boomer generation is now all retired, but there is still little work being done to enable the smart home to serve this generation in a more meaningful way beyond keeping an eye on them remotely via security cameras.
We really need better ways to look after our aging loved ones, including ways to monitor their health. I think connected wearable devices will play a key role, providing families with more useful data about how their aging parents are doing. And in case of accidents, smart homes need to respond appropriately to the situation, so AI will be crucial to make this happen.
Security cameras, smart light bulbs, and other connected gadgets will continue to work the same way they do now, but the added component of AI will make them smarter.