Consumers unaware of the power of smart homes

An intelligently connected home can do more today than most consumers consider possible, according to a survey by Bosch.

Bosch has conducted a survey on the topic of smart homes together with Twitter in Germany, France, Great Britain, Austria, Spain and the United States.

While two thirds of the respondents know that the smart home can turn the lights off automatically when they leave the house, only 22% can imagine that the oven can already suggest the perfect recipes.

By country comparison, Twitter users from France are most confident of what smart home technology can do compared to the British, the Americans and the Austrians, for example. Germans and Spaniards, on the other hand, consider much of what is already possible today to be a vision for the future.

“It is particularly striking that especially the 25 to 34-year olds come closest to the reality with their assessments,” Bosch said. The fact that awareness of the possibilities decreases with age is not as surprising as the fact that many digital natives do not know what functions are possible today.

Especially for the 16 to 24 year-olds who don’t even know a world without the internet, networking at home is still surprisingly unknown. The reason for this could be the lack of relevance that home topics have for this age group.

Furthermore, only 50% of the surveyed are aware that today’s smart home systems are interoperable, meaning that different devices can communicate with each other, even independent of the manufacturers.

Respondents were even more convinced by the potential for saving energy, when the heating switches off automatically as soon as the windows are opened, for example.

The Spanish, French and English, in particular, seem to be very interested in saving money. Between 71% and 75% considered saving energy a convincing argument in the survey.

While this was also the most popular answer the Germans surveyed gave, they come in last place here by country comparison with 59% of the mentions.

“This is quite surprising because the Germans are normally known for their environmental consciousness,” said Bosch. “Presumably more financial than ecological aspects make energy saving possibilities so interesting in countries like Spain, France and England, however.”