Smart Homes Automate, But Can They Think?
What Makes a Home Truly Intelligent?
Smart homes have come a long way… From simple automation to entire ecosystems of connected devices. But let’s be honest: they’re still mostly just following scripts. If X happens, do Y. Useful? Absolutely. Intelligent? Not really.
Very Jetsons, very mindful.
I believe the next step in this space isn’t just better automation, it’s smarter, more adaptive systems that don’t simply react, but understand. Imagine a home that doesn’t just wait for you to give commands but actively helps improve your daily life. It might suggest opening the windows on a cool morning instead of running the AC, remind you that the oven is still on before you leave (and turn it off if you acknowledge it was a mistake), or even notice patterns in your family’s routines - like adjusting the lights and music differently on school nights versus weekends. I can think of so many examples like this that get progressively more “Jetsons” - or dystopian, depending on your particular viewpoint…
A “whole home AI” woven into daily life like this would feel less like a basic voice assistant with a haphazardly put together collection of smart devices (lookin’ at you, Alexa), and more like an active participant in the home.
OK just thought of another one: Imagine your home recognizing that traffic is worse than usual and waking you up 15 minutes earlier for your morning commute…
The folks that lean more towards the “this is a terrible AI dystopia” side of the fence are likely wondering:
How much autonomy should a system have?
Is it possible to achieve this level of intelligence without giving up privacy?
How do I trust the AI to not lock me in while pumping a deadly neurotoxin through the vents?
My take is that an incredible (perhaps uncomfortable) amount of data is already being generated about us - our habits, our routines, our preferences… Most of it feeding into systems we are vaguely even aware of and have little to no control over. If some of that data could be harnessed for me rather than just about me, making my home smarter in ways that genuinely improve my life, I’d call that a step in the right direction.
I believe the real solution to the privacy debate is hardware capable of running local LLMs (Large Language Models, like ChatGPT) which enabes fast, private, and more energy-efficient AI-driven assistance. Today, it’s possible to run quantized or distilled LLMs, which are smaller, optimized AI models designed to perform well on limited hardware (like on a Raspberry pi powered off-grid apocalypse computer, for example 😉). With proper training and fine-tuning, this kind of setup can fully handle conversational smart home control. A locally run AI means your requests never need to be sent to the cloud for processing, resulting in better performance and privacy.
That said, running AI locally definitely has trade-offs. Sure, you get privacy, “speed” (this one really depends on the hardware and the types of requests), and efficiency, but you also hit a wall when it comes to raw power. Cloud based AI has no such limits, there are massive server farms packed with high-end GPUs can handle complex reasoning, adapt to new data, and offer intelligence miles ahead of what today’s local models can do. This is exactly why Alexa and Siri still feel so dumb (even though they still send your voice commands to the ‘cloud’ for processing). They’re stuck reacting to commands instead of actually understanding you. If we want smart homes that go beyond simple triggers and start feeling intelligent, the cloud is our best bet ATM.
If you really think about it, smart homes are going down the same path as smartphones. Early mobile phones were just for calls… Remember that? No? Ok, I’m old. Then came texting, color screens, cameras, GPS, and an ever-growing list of sensors… Accelerometers, gyroscopes, biometric readers, haptics, LiDAR, and more… and more.. (This doesnt even include the litany of ‘wellness tech’ sensors your phone has access to when paired to a wearable like the Apple Watch.)
Our beloved smartphones of today didnt become smart just because of their larger screens or the absolutely bonkers amount of sensors they’ve managed to cram in. The real game changer was the masterful orchestration of these sensors working together to create a responsive, sometimes even proactive experience.
Your phone can tell when you’re driving and automatically switch to Do Not Disturb (accelerometer, gyroscope, GPS).
It recognizes your face to unlock instantly (camera, TOF sensor, proximity sensor).
Your phone can automatically adjust screen brightness, and even turn off the always on display when it’s in your pocket, or when you’re not nearby - optimizing battery life based on your activity (ambient light sensor, accelerometer, and proximity sensor).
Today, our homes are full of data points too, but we’re barely tapping into what’s possible. Just about every thing is an internet connected “smart” device (smart toaster). Lots of devices (sensors) and tons of data points - sound familiar?
Right now, most automation is still based on simple, isolated triggers, ie: motion detected → turn on lights, thermostat follows a schedule → adjust temperature. Yawn.
The real leap forward will come when an AI can analyze all these data points together, find patterns, and take meaningful actions. This is when a home stops just responding and starts understanding. The potential is huge, imagine an AI that doesn’t just follow schedules but notices when and how the home is being used, automatically optimizing lighting, temperature, home audio, even helping manage the family’s schedule.
But here’s the thing: No one is truly doing this yet, not at the level I’m thinking, at least. There’s no equivalent of Apple or Google in the smart home space tying it all together into a seamless experience (including Apple and Google’s themselves). Right now, many homes are where smartphones were before the iPhone: lots of interesting pieces, but nothing fully connected in a way that feels intuitive, effortless, and actually smart intelligent.
The pieces are all in place - tons of data points in the home, reliable and fast internet connectivity, and now, access to powerful AI. The only thing missing is someone to bring it all together to finally leave legacy home automation and dinky voice assistants in the past.
So the question is: who’s going to figure it out first? 👀
Disclaimer: No AI was used in the writing of this blog post. Definitely used some generative-AI for some of the images, though.
