The 3 Ps of Home Automation

In this post I will highlight the essentials of home automation. These are the key ingredients which require strong focus and serious contemplation in order to design, develop, release and market home automation solutions. I cover these essentials under 3 headings namely, Products, Platform and Presence. All three headings begin with the letter P and I come from a certain academic background. As a result out came the very obvious title “The 3 Ps of Home Automation”. These really are the marquee ingredients of the recipe of home automation. Get these wrong and you will be leaving a bad taste in the mouth of people who try it. The diagram accompanying this post highlights the attributes of each of the 3 Ps.

Products

These are the tangible, visible, functional and technology enabled components which are a key touch point for end user interaction. The qualifiers used in the previous statement are important. Tangible, signifies the user touches and feels these products. It is important to ascertain the expectation of the user and deliver the right touch and feel to your product based on positioning. Visible, signifies the products become a part of the interiors of the user’s home. Aesthetics of such products play an important part in the integration of products into trends of interior design. Options in aesthetics are always welcome, but options come at a cost and this cost need to be scrutinized very carefully.

Functional, signifies various functions of home automation namely security, sensors, controllers and lighting. Each function presents unique challenges in terms of product capabilities. However, coverage of functions is vital in order to project a complete home automation capability. A home automation offering should present users options in products which cover all functional aspects of the user’s home. Typically there are independent products to address requirements of each sub-function within the listed functions. Combining some sub-functions and developing composite products is a masterful way to ensure adequate coverage. As always, careful design consideration is required to ensure the products provide the right value to the user.

Finally technology, which signifies the technology of functional components, the communication protocols and the standards, used in the hardware products to provide automation. Functional components come from the traditional electrical and hardware products and certain innovations which have come about in that space easily move over. Take switches for instance; they come with latching push buttons, momentary push buttons, resistive or capacitive touch sensors, etc. These innovations have been carried forward into the automation space and are being developed further. As for the technology for communication, there are various options from industry standard protocols to proprietary protocols. Choosing the right protocol is important as switching cost to other protocols is high. Developing understanding of technology trends, developments and roadmap for each technology option is a tiresome but fruitful exercise, which will hopefully provide insights to make the right choice. The protocol is likely to be the biggest bet in this P (Product that is), and so adequate research, deliberations, consultations and trails need to be done thoroughly. Another aspect of Products is the ability of the offering to integrate third party Products. This typically requires adoption of certain open standards and technology architecture considerations, which is a nice lead up into the next section, which is the next P, the Platform.

Platform

Home automation is primarily focused on integration of various smart devices or “Products”, into an extensible, scalable, loosely coupled, yet closely integrated system. The objective is to make the whole system feel and function as a single, configurable unit which can seamlessly aggregate information from the different components within the system and make it available to the user and can efficiently segregate high level commands from the user into specific instructions for individual products for execution. Designing a loosely coupled system ensures the architecture is robust, and closely integrated aspect ensures aggregation and segregation with best possible efficiency. Platform architecture which delivers on these requirements delivers the best user experience. I highlighted the need to focus on user experience in my previous post on home automation. The home automation Platform is the biggest contributor to user experience.

Platform consists of two primary components, the server side application and the front end user interface which typically is a mobile App. While drawing up the architecture of the platform emphasis should be on creation of various services within the overall platform architecture to address all functional and non functional requirements. Functional requirements can be categorized into: user management, security, device management, command and data management. Non-functional requirements are: peak load management, response time, fail-over and recovery, scalability, etc. The front end mobile app allows individual device management and control, which is the basic functionality of the UI and should be designed to be intuitive and easy to use. At the same time, the mobile app should enable smart functions such as scene controls, preset device configurations, user identification and preference management, location based controls and smart assist features. These smart functions enable users to derive the best value from home automation. Platform also needs to address important requirements of integration with third party products and solutions such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home, etc. While the Products deliver individual function, the Platform brings the whole offering together, and hence the Platform deserves prominent attention during design and development phase.

Presence

Presence is concerned with building the team, partners, and strategy to market, promote and sell home automation offering and to provide all necessary support. The first aspect is to ensure adequate marketing and promotion. Focus should be on developing both online and offline marketing strategy and setting up a competent team to execute, learn and adjust the marketing strategy. Second aspect in Presence is development of the sales channel, along with appropriate channel partners based on area of business, location, capabilities, etc. This is a technological evolution in a traditional business of home electrical and hardware supplies. Development of channel to reach the market is fundamental and so is the development of understanding of and the ability of management of the expectations from the channel partners.

Finally the third aspect in Presence is local technical teams for both installation and after sales support. Given the nature of the products focus should be on setting up team of multi-skilled technicians skilled as electricians and carpenters. At the same time highly experienced solution managers with understanding of interior design are vital for appropriate, efficient and elegant solution design, project coordination and execution. Also, all aspects of after sales support must be addressed right from problem reporting, problem management and problem resolution. Skilled team and systems should be deployed to address this specific requirement. There are opportunities to cross-leverage some teams, which is a strategy best deployed through careful planning along with a clear road-map to buffer additional support into the teams based on growth projections.

I have laid out the essential components of a home automation offering. Each one in itself is worth spending many posts on given the complexity involved. However, given the limit of a single post I have managed to just briefly introduce the 3 Ps of home automation. I will get into finer details of each of these in future posts. I would love to hear feedback, insights and requests if any as comments to this post, so please do share if you have any.