Smart home specialist Bruno de Latour shares his insights about automated home systems with Relaxnews.
The touch screen is becoming all-pervasive in our homes. Surreptitiously, the smartphone phenomenon is spreading to launch a full-on assault on the smart home, a market that is having significant struggles gaining a foothold.
Over the past 28 years, I've been pushing my boulder up the mountain, Sisyphus style, to help establish this market. Back in 1984, I started promoting the home automation concept in France, hoping that marketers, equipment manufacturers and home builders, designers, and fitters would jump onboard.
There was no reaction then -- except for concern about their businesses. Nowadays, under the influence of Steve Jobs' iPhones and iPads, home control and automation is moving to touch screens. Apple is providing the interface for our interiors, while Google and Microsoft are finetuning the software.
What will be left for the construction companies that I tried to rally back in the late 1980s? The acerbic response of an electricity equipment manager still rings in my ears from when I told him in 1988 that we would all have computers in our homes. There was also a mustachioed fellow from the Fédération du Bâtiment who didn't believe that internet would become integrated into our homes.
Now it's time for remote control and switch manufacturers to open their eyes!
After 30 years of journalism and the launch of a dozen specialist publications, Bruno de Latour is now a widely recognized expert in home automation. As a European expert and academic speaker, he works as a consultant for various companies in the field of electrical systems and NTIC technology.
He edits professional newsletter Domotique-News at http://domotique-news.com/ (in French)
