AI-powered and IoT-enabled applications like personalized and predictive automation is now dominating the consumer experience for smart homes by making life more secure, convenient and most importantly, safe.   AI and IoT are quickly becoming the leading factors in the growth of smart home markets. Smart living with automation and integrated AI-IoT is no longer considered as a luxury as home automation tools have become more affordable.

Home automation and smart homes are two ambiguous terms used in reference to a wide range of monitoring solutions, controlling, and automating functions in a home. Unlike simple home automation solutions (which could range from motor-operated garage doors to automated security systems), smart home systems require a web portal or a smartphone application as a user interface to interact with an automated system. Smart home devices are suitable for a home setup where devices can be automatically controlled distantly from any Internet-connected place in the world, using a mobile or other networked device. A smart home has its devices connected through the Internet, and the customer can regulate functions, such as security access to the house, temperature, lighting, and home theater.

A report from Mordor Intelligence projected that the Global Smart Homes Market was valued at USD 79.13 billion in 2021, and it is expected to reach USD 313.95 billion by 2027 and register a CAGR of 25.3% over the forecast period (2022 – 2027). It said: “Across real estate companies and the architect ecosystem, the ‘new normal’ defined through the social distancing results in a requirement to go back to the redesign basics and reinvent the residential real estate product by factoring in new-age designing, efficiency, and innovation.

As the redesign happens, the need for a totally new set of amenities has resurfaced and gained prominence. What the customer will need in the ‘new normal’ has undergone a revolution in the crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is leading to a paradigm shift in residential spaces.”   Active Companies include: SPYR, Inc., Apple Inc., NVIDIA Corporation, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Microsoft Corporation.

Mordor Intelligence continued: “Companies are continuously investing in new product designs. Globally, the increasing importance of the need to counter security issues is anticipated to fuel the demand for smart and connected homes over the forecast period. Moreover, innovative wireless technologies, including security and access regulators, entertainment controls, and HVAC controllers, are expected to foster market growth. Moreover, reducing IoT sensor costs are also expected to result in OEMs offering products for a more competitive and lower price, which could indirectly impact the HVAC equipment market. Green HVAC systems are being developed to bring down costs and improve energy efficiency.”  It concluded that North America holds the major share of smart home market… “Smart homes are on the rise, with nearly 30 million US households projected to add smart home technology in the near future. The products consumers are looking to add to their homes include connected cameras (highest demand), video doorbells (2nd highest demand), connected light bulbs, smart locks, and smart speakers of late.”

SPYR Technologies’ Applied Magix Exploring AI Applications for IoT Systems – SPYR Inc, a technology company whose subsidiary, Applied Magix, Inc., develops and resells Apple® ecosystem compatible products in the growing multibillion-dollar smart home and connected car markets, announces exploring AI applications for inclusion into its products.

AI, also known as Artificial Intelligence, is the branch of computer science that aims to answer the question “can machines think?” – it is the endeavor to replicate or simulate human intelligence in machines. While the popular view of AI, nurtured by Hollywood and popular media, portrays robots and supercomputers’ ambitions to take over the world, the reality within the realm of IoT appears far more banal, on the surface. It involves the use of AI decision-making systems to regulate and ‘decide’ on actions within our environment.

“As part of our Secret Lab initiatives, AI frequently comes to the forefront of product development and how to make smart hardware even smarter.” Said Applied Magix CEO Dr. Harald Zink. “For example, various sensors track a number of conditions around your house, but when processed by an AI system, analyzing those conditions can be used to trigger actions that increase security or save you money in the long run.”

” AI is a fascinating field that is fast growing and shows a tremendous amount of promise to make our lives easier in an enriching way” states, Tim Matula, Chief Executive Officer of SPYR Technologies. ” It’s exciting to get updates on what Applied Magix’s Secret Lab is exploring and working on, and hopefully finding its way into our homes at some point in the future.”

In other developments and news of note in the markets this week:

Apple Inc. recently announced that Apple Business Essentials™ is now available to all small businesses in the US. The new service brings together device management, 24/7 Apple support, and iCloud® storage into flexible subscription plans. Apple also unveiled new AppleCare+℠ for Business Essentials options that can be added to any plan. Additionally, a two-month free trial will be available to all customers, including those who have been using Apple Business Essentials in beta. Apple Business Essentials supports small businesses through the entire device management life cycle, beginning with streamlined employee onboarding. At Espresso Services Inc., an employee begins onboarding with the Apple Business Essentials app.

“Apple has a deep and decades-long commitment to helping small businesses thrive. From dedicated business teams in our stores to the App Store Small Business Program, our goal is to help each company grow, compete, and succeed,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Enterprise and Education Marketing. “We look forward to bringing Apple Business Essentials to even more small businesses to simplify device management, storage, support, and repairs. Using this new service leads to invaluable time savings for customers — including those without dedicated IT staff — that they can invest back into their business.”

NVIDIA Corporation recently announced the availability of the NVIDIA®Jetson AGX Orin™ developer kit, the world’s most powerful, compact and energy-efficient AI supercomputer for advanced robotics, autonomous machines, and next-generation embedded and edge computing.

Jetson AGX Orin delivers 275 trillion operations per second, giving customers over 8x the processing power of its predecessor, Jetson AGX Xavier, while maintaining the same palm-sized form factor and pin compatibility — all at a similar price. It features an NVIDIA Ampere architecture GPU, Arm Cortex-A78AE CPUs, next-generation deep learning and vision accelerators, high-speed interfaces, faster memory bandwidth and multimodal sensor support to feed multiple, concurrent AI application pipelines.

“As AI transforms manufacturing, healthcare, retail, transportation, smart cities and other essential sectors of the economy, demand for processing continues to surge,” said Deepu Talla, vice president of Embedded and Edge Computing at NVIDIA. “A million developers and more than 6,000 companies have already turned to Jetson. The availability of Jetson AGX Orin will supercharge the efforts of the entire industry as it builds the next generation of robotics and edge AI products.”

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. recently announced a definitive agreement to acquire Pensando for approximately $1.9 billion before working capital and other adjustments. Pensando’s distributed services platform includes a high-performance, fully programmable packet processor and comprehensive software stack that accelerate networking, security, storage and other services for cloud, enterprise and edge applications.

“To build a leading-edge data center with the best performance, security, flexibility and lowest total cost of ownership requires a wide range of compute engines,” said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD chair and CEO. “All major cloud and OEM customers have adopted EPYC processors to power their data center offerings. Today, with our acquisition of Pensando, we add a leading distributed services platform to our high-performance CPU, GPU, FPGA and adaptive SoC portfolio. The Pensando team brings world-class expertise and a proven track record of innovation at the chip, software and platform level which expands our ability to offer leadership solutions for our cloud, enterprise and edge customers.”

Microsoft Corporation recently released its second annual Work Trend Index report, “Great Expectations: Making Hybrid Work Work.” The company also announced new features across Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, Surface Hub and Microsoft Viva to empower hybrid work and address employees’ new expectations for the workplace.

After sitting on the cusp of hybrid work for more than a year, many companies are at a long-awaited inflection point: the lived experience of hybrid work.

One thing from the research is clear: We are not the same people who went home to work in early 2020. The past two years have left a lasting imprint, fundamentally changing how people define the role of work in their lives. The challenge ahead for every organization is to meet employees’ great new expectations head on while balancing business outcomes in an unpredictable economy.