From re-design to service: the true value of data in the smart home

At the last IFA in Berlin, the message from a bit of all vendors was the following: artificial intelligence is increasingly present at the heart of home appliances to make people's lives easier. AI, in other words, takes care of the user and improves the user experience of smart devices, providing tangible benefits. And it must do so by starting from the data (stored in cloud platforms) that tell us about the habits and behaviour of the users themselves and by exploiting interfaces that can be voice commands, touch screens and apps through which to orchestrate the operation of the various devices directly from the smartphone. Artificial intelligence, in short, helps to govern and monitor the use of washing machines, ovens, fridges and so on, suggesting functions designed to increase their lifespan, optimise their performance and reduce their consumption, always and in any case on the basis of the consumer's choices and needs.

The basic idea of technology operating behind the scenes, making home activities easier and the home environment more comfortable is the mantra of Samsung, Lg and the many Chinese manufacturers competing in the smart home market. A world that has seen the entry of Gen AI to raise the bar of human-machine interactivity even higher, answering questions, performing certain operations in total autonomy, and raising the quality of remote technical assistance.

But let's go back to the starting point, to data: how much and how much do the information gathered by connected and intelligent machines affect product (re)design, customer service activities and the actual user experience? And how much, thanks to AI, do individual vendors actually know about us? We talked about this with

Piergiorgio Bonfiglioli, Haier Europe's IoT Marketing Director, first pointed out the security issue: 'EU privacy regulations, such as the GDPR and the AI Act, speak clearly and say that data produced by connected devices must be anonymised and stored in European servers. The user receives suggestions and notifications without the vendor knowing his or her details, and it is the consumer who gives consent for his or her data to be used, either when requesting assistance or to allow the hOn app access to the camera and Gps of his or her smartphone'. With the information gathered by the machines and thanks to the categorisation of feedback and reviews provided by the AI, Haier intervenes to improve and correct the functionality of a product at the R&D level (with the possibility of managing modifications for specific markets) using various tools, starting with a business intelligence system (enhanced by the algorithms) that analyses the actual operating parameters and identifies trends in use in order to make the work of human specialists even more precise and targeted. "The machine," Bonfiglioli went on to explain, "constantly suggests optimised modes of use, but the AI does not subvert the habits of the user at will, who can at any time activate or deactivate any function or choose to delegate the complete and adaptive management of the appliance to the hOn app. On fridges, for example, there are integrated functions that respond to predetermined operating scenarios, i.e. both automatic settings of parameters such as temperature and humidity and customised configurations that arise from data processed by AI in combination with geolocation tools. In the smart home idea designed by Haier, data are also the raw material for activating predictive device maintenance (in the form of alerts linked to the individual user's usage habits) and for feeding the work of the call centre operators, who have real-time access to the entire history of the appliance (including faults) to resolve any malfunction in the shortest possible time. And if the next step, expected in 2026, is the integration of generative AI within the app to enable assistance services directly via chatbots, the role of the TV is destined to become central (as an alternative to the refrigerator) as a control centre for the operating status of all connected appliances and as a management hub for the home's smart energy system. The dream of total interoperability between different appliances promised by the Matter standard is still to come, but there is no doubt that the home today is much smarter than in the recent past.