[column] Hoe maak je smart home-producten echt veilig?

The smart home’s increase in popularity is undeniable and figures show it will only continue to grow, reaching 12.86 billion by 2020. In a world of rapid-fire technology, companies should constantly be thinking about making smart home products safe and reliable. As one of the largest barriers for consumers to buy smart home products is the increasing concerns around hacking and privacy, especially when you are just new in the market, there are some crucial tips for the ones that just started a smart home-business or that are thinking about starting one.

These tips will help to create reliable smart home products to reassure customers about their personal information safety:

-        To create reliable products, the first step should be to question the usability. Do not create gadgets but seek to offer useful and simple devices with clear and lasting benefits, that can really make users’ life easier and more comfortable, without compromising on safety.

-        Ensure that the products have a long-lasting design that can fit into everyone’s interior. This is where the marketing team plays a fundamental role: instead of surfing on new emerging trends, build emotional bonds through design between customers and products.

-        Use retroactive software updates to make sure that the technology keeps working smoothly, without having to worry about it. A strong software update policy is the key to offering solutions that stand the test of time.

-        Design simple, yet powerful devices. For the general public to adopt smart products, use them every day and install them in their house, they have to be beautiful, simple to use and dissimulate what makes them powerful. It’s very important to propose products that are simple to install, simple to set up. Interactions need to be user-friendly and kept to a minimum to make life easier.

Using these four tips as a base when creating reliable smart home products will help building a strong customer base that will grow over time.

Dit blog is geschreven door Fred Potter, oprichter en CEO van smart home-expert Netatmo.