Connected cars and smart homes: coherence of a convergence platform

Published: June 16, 2014
We’ve all had those “oh-no” moments in our day-to-day life when we miss switching-off TV, fan, washing machine or wants to turn on the air conditioning before we reach home. Life would be very easy when we gain controls of all our household items like television, fan, washing machine and air-conditioner to turn it on or turn it off on the go. All this constitutes the essence to the next big leap in Internet of Things “the coherence of convergence platform”.

With the advent of connected-car and connected-home the anticipated next step is the meeting of the technology where home meets car at an intersection of safety, security, social and big data insights. An application linked to a vehicle’s GPS data can remind to turn off the air conditioning before we move out of home and enable them to turn it on remotely when we come back. It’s really amazing and surprising to see that many companies have already stated their hands to implement this convergence and making it a reality.
Toyota and Panasonic are working together on cloud-based telematics service to make life easier and less stressful by letting people keep tabs on and operate their home appliances from the wheel of their car.

Denso and Sharp are collaborating on new technologies to improve the comfort, safety and convenience of vehicles by integrating connected vehicle technologies with home electronics.
Mercedes-Benz is also planning to add Nest support to its vehicles and letting drivers to able to tweak the temperature at home right from the dashboard of the car.
ADT Security has built a model where cars and our homes are fused together. They have integrated it into Sync, Ford’s connected car model that allows customers to totally control their home from the connected vehicle. Ford has also partnered with Eaton, SunPower, Whirlpool and Georgia Institute of Technology to explore ways to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions by integrating home appliances with plug-in electric vehicles.
Volvo demoed a new “Roam Delivery” service built around car company “Volvo On Call” and Sensus Connect Technologies, which allows consumers to have their shopping delivered straight into the car.
Therefore, the new paradigm sets the stage for intelligent systems, connectivity, newer platforms, analytics and applications or in simplified words – Internet of Everythings (IoT).

The convergence outlook:
The Internet of Things has become less of a concept and more reality in 2014 with more and more things getting connected and smart. The concept is creating new opportunities for technology to integrate into peoples’ lives.
Along with other things, these connected cars will be designed to act as a personal assistant. While you’re sipping your morning coffee in terrace, your car will tap into your home network or Cloud, check your calendar, weather forecasts and traffic updates to figure out the best route to take to work or to get your chores done — and even tell you what time you should leave.

Future is yet to come, but when we look at the connected car and home trends we can see that they are not mutually exclusive. Seeing the resounding response this technology is gaining, the investors and customers are adamant that “the merging of the connected car and home is going to be the next big thing.”
Obstacles in the path:
Home automation is a slow market; it heavily depends on tying together sensors, controllers and an application framework. The opportunity for the connected car market is huge but few challenges exist. Therefore, it would not be easy to bring a car and home together. Finding the best way to connect these two is a tough job.
The fundamental problem in automotive world is it’s distant from what happening on the web. A dearth of connected home appliances is also a big factor in the adoption of this technology, so is the lack of crossover between the car and the home.The technology is making a car and a home to compete each other in spite each of them being such a diverse market in itself.
Data Privacy is also a big concern when data end up in the hands of outsiders. For example, how do you sale your used car that knows much about you? “How do you disconnect all of your personalized electronics and reset the car for the new owner?”
However, these challenges are not insurmountable. Instead, they highlight the opportunity to fundamentally change the experience for users and finally bring connected cars and home together for consumption into the 21st century.
Check out the video demonstrating the “future of connected cars”