As I wrote last week, I believe that Apple exited the home Wi-Fi market at precisely the wrong time. Back in 2004, I worked for a company that was trying to get into the home integration/home automation market. At the time, everything was extremely complicated. All of the products were expensive, everything was complicated to set up, and it wasn’t set up well for future growth.
I love HomeKit, and it’s the primary way I interact with my smart home devices. There are a number of reasons for that: it’s built right into iOS (I use it 75% of the time from Control Center), it works with Siri, and Apple is one of the only companies that I trust with my privacy. Right before Christmas, I was walking around my local Costco, and it struck me how poor of a job Apple has done with:
Marketing HomeKit
Setting HomeKit up to succeed against Alexa and Google Assistant.
The Problem with Apple’s Home Strategy
Seeing this really got me thinking about the state of HomeKit, and how it’s perceived from consumers. When you walk around a store like Costco, Google Assistant and Alexa feel alive. You start to wonder about all of the things you can do with it. Google released a Christmas ad that redid some scenes from Home Alone, and it was wonderful.
That commercial and my experience at Costco has really cemented the fact to me that Apple is playing a dangerous game with its Home strategy. They’re moving too slow compared to the competitors. I am not talking about Siri either. I enjoy Siri, but I also see how Alexa and Google Assistant are moving faster than Apple (from what we can see). I am talking about how I feel general consumers see the platforms through each of the various marketing efforts.
I’ve used all three of the platforms, and I prefer the Home app over the others. I prefer onboarding in HomeKit as well. Everything is very Apple-like in its implementation. My frustration with HomeKit has nothing to do with how it works. It comes down to its branding and compatibility with products.
The Year of the Same for HomeKit
When I look back to HomeKit in 2018, outside of HomePod, did we see any new developments? We still don’t have doorbells on the market that are compatible. We still are very limited with HomeKit cameras. Google Assistant has its own Nest cameras, and Alexa is compatible with multiple products in these areas.
My suggestions for Improving Apple’s Home Strategy
If I was in charge of HomeKit at Apple, my first priority would be expanding the products that work with HomeKit. I’d figure out the hold up with manufacturers, and encourage HomeKit support (with the promise of co-marketing resources). If Apple can’t get a doorbell company on board, then they need to build their own.
Apple is at its best when it’s not reliant on other companies, and home automation is clearly becoming one of those situations. I’d offer co-marketing dollars to any company building out HomeKit support in their products as well. I’d also start an aggressive “Works with Siri” ad campaign to show off all the things you can do with interacting with your home from iPhone, iPad, Mac, HomePod, Apple TV, and Apple Watch. I’d show the benefits of everything being it in a single Apple ecosystem, and I’d begin the discussion about privacy. I think Apple should have had a much bigger presence at CES than they appear to be as well.
2019 might end up being the year that the general population starts to wake up to what all of these companies know about us, and why putting speakers with microphones in them in every room might not be the best idea. Apple is uniquely positioned to stand alone here as the winner.
Wrap-up
Photo by Howard Lawrence B on Unsplash
