Can Comprehensive Smart Home Systems Go Mainstream?

It is impressive to hear Steven Snider rattle off a list of all the things he can control from his iPhone: the ventilation in his garage, the music streaming to speakers in multiple rooms of his home, every light, the TV, the thermostat, even the Blu-Ray player in the guest house.

But Snider, who turned his century-old Newton home into a fully connected house during a major 2012 renovation, had no special knowledge before beginning the project.

Im not as tech savvy as it sounds, Snider, who was profiled in Boston Globe Magazine in 2013, said. This works just like any other iPhone app. You push a button and it brings you to the next menu, you select what you want to do and it brings you to the next menu, and youre done.

Sniders house runs the Control4 automated home system, which New England-based firm simpleHome installed and maintains. Both companies are championing a whole-house system, fully integrated with a homeowners smartphone or iPad, as a way to finally bring connected home technology into the mainstream.

Greg Premru

Connected, or smart, homes have been a long time coming. Bill Gatess mansion made news in 1997 for having a series of televisions that displayed artwork according to his guests preferences by communicating with a special pin each person wore.

The Internet of things, the network of physical objects injected with software and able to communicate with each other, has been adopted slowly by the general population.

In 2014, the Consumer Electronics Association found only 3 percent of homeowners had a smart thermostat, like the Nest. Of the people who didnt own one, 61 percent said they never expected to.

The most familiar products bringing the Internet of things into our homes ask homeowners to take a DIY approach to installation.

Ever installed a light fixture? Nests website asks. Then you shouldnt have any trouble with Nest. In fact, 99% of the people who installed Nest themselves would do it again.

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Can Comprehensive Smart Home Systems Go Mainstream?