More on the connected home of today

Yesterday we discussed how both Google and Apple are entering the fray of the internet-enabled home – an idea whose time has previously come, but is now being realized in an entirely new way.

Silicon Valley Business Journal reporter Jon Xavier recently detailed how the modern American home is growing more connected to the internet. He notes that Apple’s recent announcement of a new product line at its Worldwide Developers conference earlier this month is an “interesting development for a number of reasons.” One of those reasons, he says, is that it marks the first entry into smart-home technologies by one of the big consumer-facing technology firms.

In addition, Google has purchased Nest for $3.2 billion, marking its foray into smart-home tech.

Xavier claims that the market’s early innovators lack scale and market reach. “They are either chipmakers who are looking for appliance companies to partner with on embedded chip products or people selling the connections for the devices,” he writes. “Other companies, like Comcast and AT&T, have a robust sales channel and are basically repackaging other people’s tech.”

Xavier claims Apple is unique in a number of different forms:

· It has its own tech and its own platform, and outright controls the smartphone, which is the one device to which many if not most of these devices will be connected.

· It has the App Store, one of the world’s largest and most valuable developer communities.

· It also has the Apple Store, which no one else has managed to replicate.

What are your thoughts?

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