Page 51 - Green Builder November-December 2018 Issue
P. 51
The Align Project:
Align Your Technology
As we move toward the ‘Intuitive Home,’ a tech-filled
smart home like the Orient becomes increasingly
hard to turn down.
BY JULIET GRABLE
ERE’S THE VISION: You return
home after a long day at work. Lights
fade on in a pleasing combination
of soothing greens and blues; your
favorite chillaxing music queues up.
You’ve plugged in your electric car, but
H your charger knows to delay charging
until rates are lower, or your smart inverter/battery system
may tell the charger to draw from the storage battery
instead. In the background, devices are talking to each
other and automating all kinds of tasks, freeing us to do
other things while saving energy and money.
Such is the promise of the Internet of Things. But there
have been a few bumps on the evolutionary road toward
what Jason Jaynes, head of technology for Kasita, calls the
“Intuitive Home.” SOURCE: REPORTLINKER.COM
When it comes to the inner sanctum of our homes,
people are cautious. They don’t want more complication
added to their lives, and they don’t want Google ogling Who’s watching me? According to a ReportLinker survey,
them (or Alexa giggling at them), especially in their living privacy concerns are the biggest drawback of smart
room or bedroom. iQor’s Customer and Product Experience home devices.
360 Survey (https://bit.ly/2NHkZo3) reveals the frustration of early adopters of smart home technology as
they “struggle with setup and installation issues and disjointed technical support involving multiple people
at multiple companies.” Often, the frustration leads to people giving up on the devices, the report notes.
Similar ndings are elsewhere. People surveyed by ReportLinker cited privacy concerns as the No. 1
drawback to smart home technology. And a poll (https://bit.ly/2yllZcC) of 2,000 homeowners conducted
COURTESY OF KASITA by home security provider Ooma found that 72 percent of people with such systems worry that companies COURTESY OF KASITA
will use smart home advances to invade their privacy. In addition, nearly a quarter (23 percent) said they
turn o their system when they have guests to avoid being “spied on.”
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