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The average home will have over 500 smart devices by 2022, so says analyst Gartner.
It will take a while for the smart home to emerge, as large domestic appliances are replaced infrequently, and the demand for smart connected devices will begin to grow slowly over the next decade.
Nick Jones, vice president and analyst at Gartner, said: “We expect that a very wide range of domestic equipment will become ‘smart’ in the sense of gaining some level of sensing and intelligence combined with the ability to communicate, usually wirelessly.
"More sophisticated devices will include both sensing and remote control functions. Price will seldom be an inhibitor because the cost of the Internet of Things (IoT) enabling a consumer ‘thing’ will approach $1 in the long term."
Wireless technology will also be a key part of the smart home, and Gartner expects that Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ZigBee will find a place within many consumers’ homes.
Research also suggested that a lack of interoperability and standards may also hinder adoption of smart devices. Because of this, Gartner reckons the sector will remain ‘technically fragmented’ through 2020.
"Devices in the smart home will demand connectivity – some will demand high reliability as they’ll be performing vital functions such as health monitoring, so homes will require reliable high-speed internet connections," said Jones.
"If these connections fail, many domestic devices might be forced to operate in, at best, a degraded manner. If homes become as dependent on good connectivity as businesses they will need fallback systems."
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