It is predicted that in the future, smart homes will evolve beyond providing convenience through device connectivity to a stage where they ultimately offer services desired by consumers through data collection and information provision, thereby enabling service providers to generate revenue.

e4ds news will host a special webinar on 'Smart Home Industry Outlook' on July 27. In this webinar, Kim Min-young, a senior researcher at LG Economic Research Institute, will give a presentation on the topic of "Smart Home Industry Outlook: Customer Value Beyond Connectivity," while Lee Su-min, a reporter for this publication, will provide commentary on the smart home industry outlook.

Generally, smart homes have been perceived as remote control and home automation through the connection of products, and in fact, various businesses have been working to implement connectivity over the past 10 years.

Thanks to such efforts, the basic costs for implementing IoT technologies, such as smart devices, sensors, integrated chips, and network servers, have rapidly decreased, and many objects have been automatically connected to the platform.

Looking at the current state of the market, the smart home market is growing at an average annual rate of 11%, and interest in smart homes has increased further since COVID-19, with 51% of consumers purchasing one or more smart devices during the pandemic.

On the other hand, it is questionable whether customers purchased smart products because they truly wanted them.

Most manufacturers come with them pre-installed, so the percentage of people who purchase smart appliances without knowing they are smart reaches 50%, and in the case of smart speakers, more than 80% use them only for listening to music.

This is because businesses approached smart homes as an upselling tool and expanded them by incorporating smart features.

In particular, current smart home devices are showing limitations in platform revenue models in addition to the connectivity feature.

Accordingly, leading smart home companies are focusing on qualitative rather than quantitative improvements within connectivity, and are strengthening third-party support to enable customers to use it easily and intuitively.

While existing products were centered on connectivity, we have entered an era where integration with external services, for which customers are increasingly willing to pay, has become crucial.

Smart home leaders such as Amazon, Google, LG, and Samsung It is connecting killer services such as shopping and content to smart homes and expanding into new services such as security and healthcare.

In the future, products and services in wellness, healthcare, beauty/fashion, home testing, entertainment, food/cooking, energy, security, and cleaning will be combined, and it is expected to evolve into a platform that provides end-to-end solutions for each.

Accordingly, an environment is being created where each device is advanced into a computer, and it is expected that this will transition into a computer system where the entire home operates autonomously.

Furthermore, in this environment, it is expected that models for distributing devices at low cost and generating revenue by providing services through the distributed devices will become widespread.

For more information on the future outlook of the smart home industry, you can attend the e4ds webinar on July 27, where Senior Researcher Kim Min-young of LG Economic Research Institute will give a presentation on the topic of 'Smart Home Industry Outlook: Connectivity, and Beyond Customer Value' .