Networking as a clock - discussion panel of smart home experts

The situation here is conceivable: The topic of Smart Home is on everyone’s lips. Nevertheless, the industry is faced with enormous challenges in terms of its own complexity. There are still many questions open. For example: Who will be the first point of contact for interested and willing consumers in the future? Will there be standards – and if so, when? How can the various trades involved be linked logically to a SmartHome? What will market drivers, and how will trade and industry change?


Politicians are required


"Networking as a clock" was therefore the title of the first Business Roundtable, to which CONNECTED HOME brought together leading experts from the country in the Munich editorial offices. At the beginning of the discussion, moderator Andreas Stumptner asked how an industry could evolve with so many different terms, such as Smart Home, Connected Home, home networking or home automation.


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Gerald Brietzke, department head at the Handelscooperation expert, reported on high-ranking, politically-promoted bodies, which already discussed this issue. But digitalSTROM boss Martin Vesper does not believe in the power of the working groups: "Everyone has a smartphone, which was invented by Sony Ericsson today, but it has been through a market power - that of Apple To create a term. "


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The question of who might be the first point of contact for consumers in the future of SmartHome is open from the perspective of Vespers: "For me, it is not yet decided to sell computer technology with the electrician or the electrician." The switch and system provider Gira began to develop intelligent systems, to date, to turn around 180 commercial and electrical companies into system integrators. Nevertheless, at around 40,000 specialist companies in the United States, this is a drop on the brink, as Gira man Markus Fromm-Wittenberg knows. "We need to strengthen the next generation, which is also a matter of educational policy, but the question is also: does a new job arise here in the future, too?"

Günther Ohland agreed with SmartHome Deutschland eV, as today's professional images seem not necessarily created for networked worlds: "We note in the association that tradesmen do their job as a rule 100% good and standard-fair It is the other way round, so one would have to go to the general responsibility and look for a competent partner for the rest of the customer service. " Only in this way could product areas such as TV, garden irrigation and smoke detection systems be combined with the consumer.


For Michael Schidlack from ITK's industry association BITKOM, it is clear: "We need a lighthouse system that shows the way to which the consumer can turn, the main thing is that he gets everything from a single source Only coordinate and assign jobs to the craft, but also develop appropriate certification systems. "


Dr. Bernd Kotschi, who gained important market knowledge with a nationwide Smart Home study in 2012, said: "Everyone who offers SmartHome today offers a solution, but the customer wants transparency Today's smart-home consultants and service providers. "


According to digitalSTROM-PR manager Eva Heringhaus, networked thinking must first of all take place in the companies involved in the market. Only then would the creation of new professional images be realistic. In digitalSTROM, for example, the use of devices such as smartphones, tablets and co-operation is already dependent on the location.


Gerald Brietzke, expert, said that the trade must still deal strongly with the issue of smart home. In the area of ​​consumer electronics, however, many networking products are already offered. "We just have to put them in the foreground and market them better, the foundations are there, so we do not need to reinvent the wheel."