Tal Schierau, VP Sales and Account Management at Radialpoint, brings insight into how tech support is key to supporting the smart home market:

What is the most important next step to engage consumers in smart home solutions, connected entertainment services, and/or value-added services like tech support and connected health?

Average consumers will engage in smart home solutions as smart home solutions become easier to buy, install and use. It’s not only about the solution working as a stand-alone device, it’s also about the interoperability with other smart home solutions that is important. In addition, if there is an issue it has to be easy to get technical support when things go wrong, and that support has to be able to help with the entire eco-system and not just the single solution. When it comes to smart heath care solutions, or home security solutions, consumers need to be able to trust that the use and support is very easy and effective and that they can rely on the solution to be working when they need it most. Other solutions like Nest being online and working in a cold climate can be critical to consumers. A home heating solutions that goes off line in -20 degrees Celsius conditions could result in burst pipes and major household damage. So as more smart home solutions become available consumers will really need to trust that their providers are ensuring that the solution works and is easily supported.

What is the biggest challenge your company faces in 2015?

OEMs are bringing different proprietary smart home solutions to market to differentiate themselves.  With the diversity that we see in the IoT landscape, there are very few standards being used that can be leveraged to offer “one tool fixes” for IoT problems. This means Technical Support Services companies will need to invest in R&D and Strategic partnerships in order to be able to offer support scope that covers all the technical layers of the connected home. The challenge becomes bridging the gap between different IoT devices and standards to provide seamless support to consumers.

What is the biggest driver for the connected consumer market?

The low cost of connect and compute hardware combined with innovation means that “automating” the home has never been so easy or cost effective. You don’t have to re-wire your house or get custom automation systems like Crestron. The recent Indiegogo favorite Switchmate is another great example of this. Switchmate installs in seconds and transforms traditional lights and light switches into an IoT connected lighting system.  

What are the most important initiatives your company is taking in 2015? 

Our approach in supporting IoT tech support is through Tools, Knowledge and People. As Smart Home Solutions come to market, ensuring that we are ready by building automated support solutions (Tools), strategic partnerships (Knowledge) and by leveraging our technical support network (People) to ensure that solutions to new IoT problems that our agents are discovering today are ready to be leveraged by all our agents in our network tomorrow.  

Describe your vision for the smart home and entertainment markets in 2020.

It was only 2010 when the first Ipad was introduced to market. This device has changed the way many of us live including where and how we watch movies, look up recipes while we’re preparing dinner, take notes, or play online games. Five more years of technical evolution will see a big change in how we interact with our connected and smart homes /cars etc. Today 2 dimensional user interfaces on our PC’s or mobile phones dictate how we interact with these devices. In 2020 our interactions will be done through voice commands or holographic interfaces. We can expect products like Amazons echo, Apple’s Siri + Home Kit and Microsoft’s Hololens will completely change how people interact with their IoT devices and connected homes. In the future our homes will have more technology then we can imagine today. And supporting our homes may become as complex as supporting a small business today. Only time will tell who will be your home’s future CIO and IT advisor? But what’s certain is many consumers will need one.

Tal Schierau will be speaking on the panel “Managing IoT Services” on Wednesday, May 20 at 2:15 PM during CONNECTIONS™ in San Francisco, CA, alongside speakers from Affinegy, Asurion, PlumChoice, and ROC-Connect.

For more information on CONNECTIONS™ speakers, sessions, or topics, visit www.connectionsus.com. Registration is still open!

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