Are smart home apps the next big thing? 

In the last two years, we have seen an explosion in smart home technology – the smart home speaker market is booming with over nine million smart home speakers sold in quarter one of this year alone. To put that in context, just 2.9 million smart speakers were sold in the entirety of 2017.

Google Home lays claim to having the smartest smart home system in the world, but there’s also the Apple HomePod and Amazon Alexa not to mention a whole host of other smart home tools.

Thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT) it’s now possible to remotely control and monitor almost every aspect of your home, from who’s ringing the doorbell and when your lights and heating turn on and off right through to seeing what’s inside your fridge while still at the office and controlling your garage door.

With so many appliances and systems now smart devices, fuelled (and controlled) by the likes of the Amazon Echo and Google Home, it’s quite likely that smart home apps could be the very next big mobile app trend. In fact, as you get started with our mobile app business opportunity, it’s entirely possible that your first commission for a smart home app is just around the corner.

The smart home app opportunity

As Forbes contributor Kent Dickson puts it in his post on the smart home and app opportunity, “As each new device gets installed and more square footage of the home becomes automated, it becomes possible to provide services and experiences in the home that were previously unimaginable. When viewed as a whole, these connected speakers, bulbs, locks, cameras, switches and appliances represent a whole new consumer platform on which companies can develop innovative apps and services.”

So what does this mean in practise?

Dickson says that the growing popularity of smart homes makes them the biggest opportunity since the app store – and as a mobile app development business owner, that is a very exciting prospect.

As everything from lightbulbs and kettles to entertainment systems and heating get connected to the internet, there is a huge potential for app developers to create innovative new apps specifically catering to the smart home market.

Whether that’s pushing the boundaries of what is creatively possible, bringing together multiple devices into one app or adding even more functionality to connected homes, the page is blank when it comes to what smart home apps could do, offer and accomplish.

With your home connected, smart apps can gather a wealth of data about usage, consumption and occupation, making it easier to track things like home security, internet bandwidth usage and peak times for gas and electricity use. This one aspect alone already opens up a wealth of creative opportunities for game changing new apps but there’s also massive potential for increased convenience, family care, entertainment and maintenance.