Wireless technology will be a key foundation of the smart home and most of the device categories will be connected wirelessly although no single technology will dominate. Gartner expects Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, cellular and various proprietary and mesh networking wireless technologies will all find a place in the smart home. It's therefore likely that a range of gateways and adapters will be necessary to bridge between the many different standards and protocols. Many domestic wireless smart objects will be portable and won't have ready access to a wired power supply, so battery manufacturers will profit from the smart home as will developers of power supply and storage technologies such as wireless charging.

The smart home will enable new opportunities at all three levels of Gartner's digital business framework — business process (improving existing processes), business models (new business approaches that disrupt existing markets) and business moments (intercepting and exploiting transient business opportunities).

Examples of key business opportunities facilitated by the smart home include:

New products and features — From improving usability with the addition of gesture or voice control to updating or enhancing a product's features throughout its life span, smart products have the potential to considerably improve existing products.

Revenue and cost-saving opportunities — Examples range from the automatic replenishment of consumables in domestic products (e.g., coffee capsules, water filters and vacuum cleaner dust bags) to the interception of purchase and replacement decisions.

New business models — Examples include new combinations of products and services that threaten traditional companies. For example, a service provider could integrate information from low-cost sensors combined with other smart products such as smart locks and domestic sensors to create new cloud-based home monitoring and security services that undercut traditional burglar alarms.

Social and government initiatives — In some countries governments will see the increasing intelligence of domestic technology as a way to influence consumer behavior or improve the delivery of services to citizens. For example, sensors and smart products could enable differential taxation; tax on water used for washing could be lower than taxes on water used to irrigate the garden. Another example might be smart trash cans that report when they're full and need collecting.

Read Also: Twitter Tests 'Buy' Button For Users

Apple To Unveil New Devices Today