New member in the "Smart" game

During last "Consumer Electronics Show" in Las Vegas, it was possible to know new implementations and solutions for the next, and immediate future, from electronic consumer industry, covering a great range of innovative products from the most consumer product in electronics industry; e.g.: cell phones, home appliances, TV's etc, to one of the most extreme version of EV; eFIA (see video in youtube).

If it is taken in consideration the most known consumer electronics products, it is possible to get some information about the new possibilities. Regarding "Smart Homes", LG, one of the most important Korean Electronic Consumer with Samsung, it has presented a new "Home Chat", one tool which allows customers to communicate, monitor and share with all LG home appliances. The language used by this system is called, "Natural Language Processing (NLP)". This language enables to communicate, from every internet device, in this case; the Smart Phones with LINE (free calls and messages) to all the appliances which operates in home, giving a new dimension of the Domotic Technology. With this implementation, the Domotic takes control over all new systems which operates in future in this Smart Homes, and not only the most used implementations: HVAC and security.

With this new interaction, the customer has the possibility to control all home appliances and watch the state of all devices in the Smart TV. From this point, a lot of applications can be implemented. Some examples, the home appliances can give information to the Customer Service Department of the Brand in case of whatever issue, and communicating to try solving this issue in the office by remote control (making Resets, updating software or firmware). At the same time, the Service Engineer will know what is really the issue in the home appliances, and also known, number of cycles, kind of cycles in any washing machine or dishwashing, number of times it gets open the door of the freezer, reference number and year of production of the appliances for whatever consulting etc, and then, being with more information for not having issues with availability of properly spare part (in case of need it), and finishing the intervention in the first visit, very important thing for end consumer. And of course, the design and production can improve the Product.

In this context, it is easy to think what it will be future applications linked with LG has presented. The new applications in the Smart Phones will be the control of all new application which would be implemented in the new Smart Homes: EV, EV charger, security, domotic, Energy Efficiency etc and etc.

In this field, there are high number of possibilities, as example and related security, it is possible to control and monitoring the starting of the extraction ventilator in the hood, if right now the extraction hood can switch on when detects a determined level of steam, why is not possible for getting systems which control level of gas or carbon monoxide for security applications, and of course being connected with emergency responsible and Smart Phones of the customer. At the same time, in this new future control systems, the EV charger can give electricity from the battery of the EV to the grid (in contrary way as normally), in case of emergency in the electric system (outages), not being able to use home appliances or other electric devices which needs electricity, like it happened in USA with the extreme weather conditions weeks ago, and then, controlling all the electricity demand by security reasons from any responsible entity. Of course, all related with Energy Efficiency and Demand Response (DR) will have an extraordinary possibilities of new business opportunities, playing with high and low demand.

Related to Energy Efficiency, and not necessarily in any emergency situation, if it is checked some topics in Google Trend, it will be shown that one of the most important topics is: "Save Energy". The people is concerned about the cost (in terms of money) and the cost (in terms of environment) about energy.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, from US Department of Energy has developed one solution for comparing data coming from the energy management systems, which enables to compare this data from different buildings at the same time, and then getting conclusions about better performance and get Energy Efficiency best practice from the experimental point of view.

Regarding Utilities, one study from New York University gives some information about which will be the most important topics in future for their customers, being mainly; bill pay options, social responsibility and transparency.

Therefore, the future will bring a lot of new challenges for Utilities and then, possibilities, but of course it will be other companies and business which will know also this opportunities.

This week, Google announced the acquisition of Nets, one company which made temperature sensors for home applications. With this acquisition, Google will integrate all the information from the temperature sensors in internet. At the same time, Google, with the acquisition of Motorola, will have the possibility for integrating the information of all mentioned devices and applications in the Smart Phones and opening new range of possibilities in the Smart Homes technologies, even with possibility for, in the meanwhile it is checked the temperature in the sensor, customer can received advertisement.

Related with advertisement, one point which is also changing in the advertisement business is the way to contact with potential customers. Outbound Marketing is almost part of history, the customers are really tired to find more and more advertisement which sometimes is never watched. May be one reason of that is the great implementation of Marketing which gives more "quality" information, information which generates interesting content and the way to explained: "Content Marketing" and "Gamification", being really one alternative for the industry business, as it is well introduced in retail business so far.

There are some information  about  "Gamification" in the "Smart Energy" business. Some explanations about webs which are opened to the people to propose alternatives and solutions for the "day by day" performance for getting best practices by the experimentation of the people. One example is "www.worldwithoutoil.org", this web is a game for proposing alternatives for a life without oil, giving possibilities for working in team for finding solutions for Smart Homes and Smart Cities, it is one web which enables to improve the "day by day" life of the people in a complete system of interaction and interchange information regarding how to life with no petrol products.

Following with an example of Gamification, Siemens has been one company which has implemented one game for simulating Smart technologies in relation with Energy (see: power matrix and picture at bottom of post). This new concept of interaction, it will enable to share a lot of information worldwide, and the people will participate in the evolution and trend of the "things", being a collaborative system. 
Just thinking about possibilities of this new concept of sharing infomation and considering I have been working in home appliances industry, I see from another point of view, and regarding this Gamification Marketing, it is could be the finish of "Instructions for Use" (IFU's) as it is known, in my opinion this new concept can make the end of the IFU's in paper, and the starting for developing simulation systems for making more real and understandable the IFU's with the interaction of the customer with an screen playing with control panels and remote control of the appliances and devices and watching what is happening when it is pressed one determined button, and also helping to the producers to create the most "easy to use" products.

Taken in consideration all the points exposed, it is possible to conclude the main point of all this proposals is the big amount of data which will create all this implementations; from Smart Homes, Smart Cities, Smart Grids and all the applications involved. All this information will create a Big Data, an enormous data. It is well known the Big Data will be one of the most important points for the most of companies which are involved in the business mentioned for getting conclusions and trends about the needs for customers, technologies and how to implemented at a lower cost, and then, creating business strategies.

 As a example, one Utility can have the information regarding Electricity consumptions from a number of customer by AMI systems (consumption peak related to time etc). On the other hand, for example, Security company will have some information too, and get some conclusions about the needs of the customer and possibilities for improvement products and services. And of course, it will be possible to cross this information in a big data, from Utility and Security company, being one company which manage all this information and even give some advertisement in the customer's Smart Phone or PC when interact with this technologies, as Google can do with the temperature sensors.

Trying to get one conclusion of all explained, there will be one company which will be able to do all explained technically and in terms of advertisement possibilities as can make any Utility in close future, but this company will be in one preference position for knowing the best possible future business. Google it is a company of marketing which use all the technological possibilities for making this marketing; internet searcher, trends for advertisement, web SEO, geolocation and etc etc.

My question is , if Google crosses all the information coming from all the Smart Energy Technologies: Smart Homes, Smart Cities, Smart Grids, Renewable Energies, with the enormous information which is "created" on the web every day, Google will have an enormous information (and information is power), and then, the best positioned to get conclusions in terms of business and advertisemen.

...and it is well known, that Google has the best tool (search engine) for crossing all this information and extract conclusions for business and advertisement possibilities, which the rest of competence have not at the same technological level...