The smart home comes with the winking names of Alexa, Hei Google, Hei Siri and conquers the Italians. This particular hi-tech niche in 2021 represents a 650 million business with a 29% jump on the previous year and a per capita expenditure of 11 euros. The lion’s share is made by smart speakers, the Amazon Echo and Google Nest models as well as the models of the third partners whose sales during the black friday and the period of promotions skyrocket, in addition to connected appliances, from robot vacuum cleaners to refrigerators. from washing machines to coffee machines such as the Lavazza A Modo Mio Voicy model. The expenditure for smart speakers is 130 million euros against 135 million for household appliances. Then follow the security solutions, another 125 million, those for air conditioning from thermostats for boilers and thermostatic valves for radiators from BTicino, Vimar, Netatmo that can be controlled with the smartphone. The list of smart best sellers is closed by sound bars and loudspeakers, light bulbs, smart plugs and devices to manage blinds and shutters remotely. This is what the research on the Smart Home of the Internet of Things Observatory of the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano reveals which underlines how the shortage of chips, semiconductors and raw materials has penalized the offer. In fact, according to forecasts, 2021 was to close with + 45% growth, with approximately 75 million lost sales. «In the last year the level of maturity of the sector has increased, both on the demand and on the supply front – underlines Giulio Salvadori, Director of the Internet of Things Observatory -. The companies have consolidated strategies and business models based on servitization and pay-per-use, with the transition from the sale of hardware only to the proposal of additional services, such as monthly subscriptions for remote assistance and boiler maintenance services, detection of suspicious movements around the house and emergency calls, fitness monitoring and assignment of personalized workouts. But also pay-per-use insurance to protect the home from theft that can be activated even for short periods with a pay-per-use rate ».
But who buys smart home devices? Virtually one in two Italians or, if you prefer, two thirds of Italians between 18 and 54 years old own a smart object. Day after day they discover the convenience and potential of the object and as many as 77% are interested in additional services including the analysis and control of electricity consumption, installation and configuration, maintenance over time, the cloud. This opens the door to pay-for-use services with monthly tele-assistance subscriptions, for example, and the activation of advanced services such as monitoring suspicious movements in the home.