Smart Home Systems Are on the Rise

Home automation systems have been around for a few decades, but many households have been slow to adopt them. Back in the 70s, some houses were outfitted with motion detectors, programmable automatic lighting, and even video cameras to lessen the load of performing mundane, manual tasks. Fast-forward to today and most automated technology is found in commercial buildings that feature automated lighting that changes in intensity depending on the amount of sunlight present. Some of these buildings have WiFi incorporated into their lighting systems to lessen the amount of electronic clutter found in most offices. With the amount of new and affordable technology on the market, people today are still reluctant to bring automation to their homes.

This trend is about to shift as more households are becoming tech savvy, most likely due to mobile devices (smartphones/tablets) being universally owned by a large portion of the planet. The business intelligence company recently released a report detailing the rise in smart home systems in both the US and Europe, which is set to increase to 2.3 million by the end of 2013. That number is set to increase to 12.8 million by 2017, which suggests more households are incorporating those automated systems at a steady pace. However, Europe still lags behind the US in smart home adaptation.