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Apple to Launch New 'Smart Home' Platform at WWDC

herbapou said:
This is different, people will be buying costly hardware here. and hardware manuf will not want to commit to apple only ecosystems.
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And they won't. See auto manufactures and CarPlay. If you have an iPhone you can use CarPlay if you don't, you use the standard infotainment system.
 
iSee said:
I'm in no hurry for this stuff.

Manual light switches are already getting the job done and my household appliances don't need much managing. My wife isn't going to let me control the thermostat even if the singularity comes.

Maybe in 15-20 years when it all stabilizes.
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Some of us have been using home automation for 30 years or more. X-10 is primitive but effective. Somebody needs to figure out how to move it forward in a more unified system. Is anybody more suited to make the attempt than Apple?
 
Here's a new product category all the Wall Street weenies have been wanting.

Home automation is an INCREDIBLY niche area right now and will remain so for a while. Most people in America aren't worried nor can afford 200 for a thermostat or 50 for a light bulb.

Not for the masses.
 
Psilocin said:
As they say, the chart never lies. What happens after a keynote is a mixed bag, but in recent lackluster keynotes, the price usually dips after the keynote before making a bounce. However, it never hurts to join the pre-keynote hype train because that consistently yields great results. With that said, I think this year's keynote will have a positive result before and after if Tim Cook pulls through with some legitimate revenue drivers to reignite growth.

Disclosure: This is not professional stock advice. Do your own research.
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This is bad advice, but at least you included a disclaimer.
 
The Phazer said:
You mean the Made for iPhone program that took the huge ecosystem advantage Apple had in speaker accessories and combined with Lightning completely blew it by being hard to work with and stupidly expensive?

Or the one that killed the iOS controller marketplace stone dead by mandating poor quality suppliers and making the offerings stupidly overpriced so it never got going?

This initiative is dead at birth if it's related to Made for iPhone.
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I have to concur with you on this ... history is not good with the made for iphone program .... This is Apples Big bag of hurt !!!
 
herbapou said:
imo there wont be an iwatch. Maybe new Apple TV Os or hardware. WWDC is not a event with big hardware expectations. If you expect big hardware announcements you better off selling youre shares right now.
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The reason I think that the iWatch would be announced at WWDC is so that developers will have early access for their code. I can see why announcing a thinner MacBook Air wouldn't happen.
 
jonnyb098 said:
Here's a new product category all the Wall Street weenies have been wanting.

Home automation is an INCREDIBLY niche area right now and will remain so for a while. Most people in America aren't worried nor can afford 200 for a thermostat or 50 for a light bulb.

Not for the masses.
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Sure but you are missing the point entirely. It would be a MFI programs existing manufacturers can add it in. And certainly in new builds this is happening a lot more.

The ONLY reason more of this stuff doesn't sell is because it's so expensive - Like Control 4, Crestron, Insteon, Lutron and all the other systems... They seem to survive and make a lot of money.

I'd buy connected light switches to replace mine at say £20... the problem is they are 50... And I need about 10 various ( singles / double / triples )

The other issue is of course the different systems around the world and various standards.
 
polterbyte said:
Good strategy. Better than buying Nest or some other company that makes gadgets for the home, IMHO. Just center all of them around the iPhone/iPad.
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And how exactly is an iPad gonna control the heating?.. download an app?.. nope.. a firm like nest has to build a piece of hardware that an app ( theirs or an Apple one on ios) can control.. it's the hardware that is key.. everything needs an extra control box somewhere...
 
Piggie said:
Totally wrong 1000%

you may as well make a car that only runs on Apple Gas and hope everyone buys it.

Sure Apple make something new, but don't make it do only your devices can use it, otherwise it will fail again.
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Are you kidding me?

Just look at Apple and what it has been doing forever and that's exactly what you will see: through their entire line of i-products they HAVE made cars that only run on Apple gas, and people still massively buy such cars, with no sign of slowing down.
 
afsnyder said:
That's because iHome is a thing... it's a speaker I believe by some 3rd party. Not every good one at that.
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As I said above, the company called iHome sells a line of audio accessories, including speakers, headphones and clocks. You find them in stores like Target and Wal-Mart. Low-end stuff. No chance that Apple would want to use the name, even assuming they could.
 
The iWatch with Siri is the key here ( could work with the phone too of course )

Press button on watch -
"Turn on lights"
"Open the garage door"
"Lock the house"
"Open the front door"
"Set the alarm"
etc

An improved aTV could act as central hub for a home automation system.

A simple set up tool designed like the OSX automator app to create macros etc

Location control via your phone so it will automatically turn on the lights and heating as you return home etc

All sorts of interesting things could be done with a decent integrated system.
 
So now when I walk into a dark room I have to get the iPhone. Unlock the phone's screen find the light switch app and launch it then scroll down to the "Bedroom #2 room lights" switch then tap a radio button. Cool. That is so much better can quicker than flipping the wall mounted light switch and more "cool" then an IR motion detection light switch.

A better interface would be location based. The controller would see that some one is about to enter the room. It would know the right time to flip the switch and then turn them off when no longer needed. It might also come with an open microphone and allow Siri to adjust the room temperature or lights.

What I'm saying is that the test for this system is if the user has to do less or more to control the equipment. So far in most cases the user has to do MORE which in my opinion is a design failure. Using this criteria it is hard to beat a wall switch
 
Ideas are cheap. It always comes down to how you implement it makes or breaks the idea. For that matter, I would put Apple at the top. Let's wait how Apple implements this idea before predicting how's going to go.
 
Piggie said:
Totally wrong 1000%

you may as well make a car that only runs on Apple Gas and hope everyone buys it.

Sure Apple make something new, but don't make it do only your devices can use it, otherwise it will fail again.
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You know that you cannot be wrong "1000%" Even Totally wrong 100% would be redundant.

As for the actual just of your comment please tell me one product Apple make that has 'failed again' - I am fairly sure every single product they have sold for the past 7 years have been runaway successes.
 
ghost of jobs said:
And how exactly is an iPad gonna control the heating?.. download an app?.. nope.. a firm like nest has to build a piece of hardware that an app ( theirs or an Apple one on ios) can control.. it's the hardware that is key.. everything needs an extra control box somewhere...
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I am trying to figure out what you are saying here, without success. Both the Nest and Honeywell smart thermostats are controlled by apps. This is a problem how, exactly?
 
springsup said:
Yikes! Here be some serious dragons.

Everyone in the industry has tried to launch the 'smart home', and all attempts have been met with absolutely no enthusiasm from consumers.

That's not to say that consumers don't want connected homes, but they're typically unwilling to replace everything in their house with a connected variant. Even when they do, they tend to focus on things with the correct size, look and price rather than it's connected platforms.

Take the most basic thing; the lights - who wants to go around and replace every lightswitch in their homes with a more expensive 'iSwitch'? Or even worse - have somebody come around to replace them for you. That's not at all desirable, and that's before you even get to the product itself - who makes it? Is it a company that make good designs which fit with peoples' homes (like IKEA), or a tech company which doesn't do any of those things (like Logitech)?

There are no shortage of systems and standards - such as Zigbee, Z-Wave, ioBridge and X10. Microsoft tried to integrate it with Windows Media Center and failed. Google tried it with Android@Home and failed.

Apple have, in the past, taken on such ground where so many had fallen and found its own way through the jungle. Can they do it again, here?

Personally, I don't think so. The real demon here is the MFI programme. If we know anything, we know that MFI adds a tremendous amount of cost to otherwise simple devices. Take the MFI Game controllers for example - I'm sure that a lot of us on here really want to play our iOS games with a real control pad, but how many have stumped up the crazy amount of cash to actually buy one?

Apple seem to be under some delusion that the MFI programme was a success in the iPod era and that it is the model which must apply to all future 3rd-party device partnerships. That's a dangerous myth.
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There are plenty of enthusiast. The problem right now though is the 'smart home' products are dispersed between multiple companies making different components. None of them talk together and require multiple apps to control.

The true full smart home solutions on the other hand are a 'niche' product because of the complexity involved with them and the lack of a trustworth store selling them.
 
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