Smart Home: a marathon not a sprint

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John Olsen, managing director of Euronics Europe
John Olsen, managing director of Euronics Europe

What is the Smart Home in consumers’ opinion? And how much would they invest in connected products or entire interconnected systems? These issues were discussed today in Milan during a conference organized for presenting the results of a survey conducted by Context about the smart home in the European markets. The event, chaired by Adam Simon, global managing director of Context, was attended by eminent representatives of industry and retail, such as John Olsen, managing director of Euronics Europe, who have discussed the opportunities of this sector, now mature enough to become an interesting growth driver for appliances and new technologies. According to the Context surveys, research and analysis company active in 22 countries, the three main drivers of the smart home sector development are: safety, cost savings and ease of use of the products, concepts, however, that need to be effectively explained to the customer. The meeting highlighted the need to redefine the very concept of smart home: for many years they talk of domotics or home automation, then of connected appliances and now of smart home and Internet of Things (IoT). So there is much confusion about. The first challenge is therefore to define what concretely we are talking about and, above all, what benefits the user can obtain in everyday life.