Ok Google, how many smart home devices are in active use around the world”
The answer … a lot, estimated at around 100million sales worldwide with a trend that is showing no signs of letting up. If you follow social media platforms such as LinkedIn & Twitter, you will see that housing organisations are increasingly embracing new cutting-edge tools and technologies to further improve the lives of their customers and employees alike.
WHAT CAN HOME HUB AND OTHER SMART DEVICES DO?
Home hub devices act as the gateway to all your smart home devices which can carry out a range of actions which I have highlighted below.
Monitor
-Fire & Carbon Monoxide Detection
-Temperature Detection
-Leak Detection
Control
-Smart Water Shut Off Valves
-Grant Remote Entry using Door Locking Systems
-Adjust Smart Thermostats
Analyse
-Patterns and Behaviour and use this to offer pro-active services
-Can be formed using multiple source such as: GPS, Calendar services
Optimise
-Machine Learning can be used to automate processes
-Offer suggestions or have permissions for full control to make optimised changes
-Set Temperature at certain hours based on user habit
Communicate to us and/or to each other
-Remind you to take medicine
-Remind you to pick up shopping
-Alert multiple parties that you need urgent help
These are just some examples of integrations which can be implemented, as the offerings expand, and standards improve their interoperability the possibilities too will grow. IoT systems can be programmed to give an automated response, based on the user input (voice or text). Some questions and their responses can be fully automated within these systems, which means that you no longer require a person on the other end answering queries. The systems offer not only the possibility of managing user queries, but also making transactions (e.g. logging a repair, making a payment)
The logic can also be programmed for direct integration with API’s with an action or a request. This gives them a lot of power to fulfil requests end-to-end with external systems
WHY HOUSING ORGANISATIONS SHOULD INVEST IN IOT?
The adoption and exploration of IoT within the housing sector is refreshing and very much welcome. Too often in the past the focus was primarily on the core business applications such as the Housing CRM, Repairs & Maintenance, Scheduling and Mobile solutions.
Of course, the above solutions are the backbone of any housing organisation, however the point I am raising is that these solutions, projects & implementations hindered creative thinking when it came to managing assets and addressing customer service in an alternative way. Without explorative projects, current business systems and the staff that support them begin to stagnate. The lack of interest subsequently meant that the suppliers that could enable you, are unable to invest time in cutting edge solutions, resulting in a circle of slow software growth.
In my 10 years of experience the only time I have seen an aggressive evolution of products is when it has been driven by legislative changes. GDPR being a recent example of this. If you are currently part of a team or an organisation within housing that have a smart or new technology strategy in place, I applaud you, we welcome it, your customers will welcome it and in turn your own users will too. The more organisations that adopt this over the coming year will see the sector move in the right direction. Of course, there is always a risk with explorative projects, but this shouldn’t be something that puts you off giving it a go, if you budget for it, you can plan for it.
ROCC are working hard to make adopting IoT simple for housing organisations to deploy. Our team in Brighton can provide consultancy on how best to deploy and trial smart devices, how to hook these up to back office systems and how to integrate them into existing business processes.
To find out more about how ROCC can help your organisation with IoT call us on 01273 274716 or complete this form.
