This blog post was originally published at NXP Semiconductors’ website. It is reprinted here with the permission of NXP Semiconductors.
As we enter 2024, the smart home is ready to enter a new era. Thanks to two overlapping trends — the arrival of Matter, the interoperability standard from the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), and the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in home control — it’s never been easier to set up, protect, expand and maintain a home network.
We’ve reached the point where everyone, not just tech experts, can do things like turn on the lights using their voice or tap a smartphone app to program the thermostat. We can even define simple rule-based functions, like “turn on the hall lights when the front door opens.”
And yet we’re still selecting and specifying every device action and every device response. What we need is easier ways to add functions that are more autonomous, so we spend less time configuring, controlling and monitoring our environments.
From Smart to Autonomous
That’s why we see autonomy as the next transformational stage for living spaces. Moving from a smart to an autonomous home achieves a decades-old vision. Instead of managing individual domains, like lighting, HVAC, security and entertainment, we’ll monitor and control our homes as a whole.
Whole-home orchestration uses a combination of evolving capabilities – spatial awareness, interoperability, seamless connectivity, and advanced security – to create a dynamic, more responsive home environment. In the autonomous home, we can configure our living spaces so they learn from our patterns, anticipate our needs and work behind the scenes to seamlessly make our day-to-day activities more convenient, safer and more energy efficient.
Pioneering the Autonomous Home
At NXP, we’re enabling the autonomous home on many fronts. To begin with, we offer one of the broadest Matter portfolios in the industry, so it’s easy to add secure interoperability to devices used in the home. At the same time, we’re working closely with customers and partners across the ecosystem to pioneer system-level solutions that can sense, think, connect and act in response to anticipated user needs.
New NXP Platform Accelerator
Another way that we’re helping to drive the transition to autonomous home is by making it easier for developers to bring next-generation ideas to life. Our new NXP Platform Accelerator designed in collaboration with one of our platinum partners, the French-American company MicroEJ, simplifies development by bringing cloud-native software techniques, including virtualization and containers, to embedded systems used in smart home, smart city and smart factory applications.
Enabling Key Trends for Autonomous Home in 2024
The intense work we put into creating the NXP Platform Accelerator is already paying off, with industry-leading companies using the platform to create new designs in record time. Building on our innovative solutions, our partners and customers are enabling several key trends that we expect to dominate the market in 2024:
- Using local voice control, voice recognition, and natural language processing (Speech-to-Intent) to create more natural interactions between people and their devices.
- Combining UWB ranging and radar to deliver a new generation of personalization and advanced audio capabilities for immersive entertainment.
- Adding AI-driven cameras, capable of interpreting images and video, to make our environments cleaner and appliances such as ovens more aware of potentially dangerous situations when left unattended.
- Employing sensors and learning algorithms to create smart thermostats that can analyze the environment, react to our patterns, and adjust power consumption to save energy.
- Simplifying Matter development and accelerating time to market for next gen devices that bring local control and seamless and interopable connectivity to our homes.
Experience the Autonomous Home in Person
This week at CES 2024 (January 9-12, Las Vegas) we’ll be showcasing many of these new solutions in our Autonomous Home experience. Here are just some of the other Autonomous home experiences visitors will be able to explore at CES:
- Matter Enablement with Aqara Devices
We’ll be demonstrating how Aqara, a leading home-control company, has extended Matter to connect entire room experiences. As announced this week, NXP is helping to expand Aqara’s latest Matter portfolio with a number of new devices enabled by our secure wireless MCUs. - Automation and liersonalization with Samsung Galaxy S23+
Visitors to the autonomous home will use a Samsung Galaxy s23+ smartphone, equipped with NXP’s Trimension™ Ultra-Wideband (UWB) functionality, to navigate a simulated home environment. With UWB’s precision ranging – we can unlock a new level of spacial and awareness that allows for other smart home devices to know where they are — and know who and where a person is at all times. - Immersive Entertainment with Sony TVs and PlayStation 5
Sony’s PlayStation 5 and next-generation TVs use NXP processing and connectivity to enable immersive entertainment, and are part of the autonomous home living-room experience. Sony recently honored NXP as an important partner for the short-term development of TVs, highlighting the advanced capabilities of our i.MX RT crossover MCU. - Touchless Cooking Control from Diehl Controls
NXP will demonstrate a safe cooktop equipped with 3Sense® Technology from German company Diehl Controls. Powered by NXP’s i.MX RT series of crossover MCUs, this innovative solution gives people new ways to control appliances. Because 3Sense Technology supports multiple states – Move, Touch, and Press – the cooktop can detect the operator’s approach and can respond to gestures, a light touch or firm pressure. Suitable for use in harsh kitchen environments, the controls are waterproof and can also be operated while wearing gloves. - Fire Prevention with Ting by Whisker Labs
This plug-in sensor, produced by Whisker Labs, a Maryland technology company using data and sensor science to enhance safety, detects and mitigates electrical hazards before they can start a fire. Collectively, a network of Ting sensors across a community helps detect faults on the grid that can lead to equipment damage, home fires and injuries, and wildfires in prone areas.
The Promise of Whole House Orchestration
The autonomous home experience at CES shows that smart home is transitioning to whole-house orchestration. We’re moving beyond the relatively simple capabilities we’ve come to expect, like controlling appliances with our voice or using a smartphone app to configure lighting controls. What lies ahead is truly intelligent living, with our homes becoming fully integrated environments that can securely and autonomously orchestrate the entire living space.
To learn more about how NXP, our partners, and our customers, are working to make whole house orchestration a reality for everyone, visit us at www.nxp.com.
Rafael Sotomayor
Executive Vice President and General Manager of Connectivity and Security, NXP Semiconductors
