Smart speakers with voice control are moving in everywhere these days. Devices like Google Nest and Amazon Echo can already be found in millions of homes across the world. Already in January 2019, Amazon claimed to have sold 100 million units in the USA alone*, and entering 2020, Google estimates to have 500 million Google Assistant monthly users worldwide**.
Have you talked to your home today?
Voice control, as such, has been a common feature in smartphones for several years already. But with the new units, home routines, usually done manually, will be done by vocal commands. So instead of grabbing your TV remote control or locating your house keys, simple commands like “Alexa, turn off sound on TV“ or “Ok Google, lock the front door“ will make users’ everyday life a lot easier.
But the next chapter in the vocal revolution has already begun. Convenient and more leisure-like options are becoming available, such as controlling your adjustable comfort bed and all the features that follow. Imagine a bedtime routine where the system automatically dims the light, locks the front door, and gently lowers your bed to a sleep position when you say: “Alexa, Goodnight!”.
All without lifting a finger!
Comfort furniture just got comfier
As an innovative developer and manufacturer of advanced movement systems for comfort furniture, LINAK® is naturally embracing the accelerating trend towards Smart Homes. With an all-in-one package, consisting of a LINAK Wi-Fi Box, a cloud setup, a customised app, and a set of Smart Home skills/actions, bed brands and manufacturers can offer leisure furniture that works with Alexa or Google Assistant.
“We have made it as simple as possible to connect adjustable comfort beds with a Smart Home system,” says Helle Taanquist, Digital Product Manager at LINAK®. “The Wi-Fi Box is easy to plug in with your LINAK actuator solution, and through a customised app you connect to the adjustable bed and enable voice control skills or actions for your system”.
Future-proof adjustable beds for Smart Homes
Making it the most user-friendly solution and the easiest possible way for bed brands to offer innovative products, was a conscious choice for Taanquist and her team from the start.
“This is no different to any other new technology. The easier it is to install, integrate and learn to use, the faster people embrace, implement and use it,” says Taanquist.
Part of making an extra effort when developing the LINAK voice control solution is also about keeping user data safe.
“First of all, the user’s data is kept in an encrypted cloud solution. Secondly, the amount of data this system collects is kept to a minimum, and thirdly, we allow the user to delete everything, whenever he or she wishes to do so”.
Roll-out of the LINAK® voice control solution – including Wi-Fi Box, cloud setup, app, and Smart Home skills and actions – has already begun, and will be available during 2020.
What are ‘skills’ and ‘actions’
Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant both come with a set of capabilities. These are the equivalent of apps on your smartphone. Amazon calls these capabilities ‘Skills’, whereas Google calls theirs ‘Actions’.
Both systems come with a set of standard skills/actions. However, both also allow third parties to design and add special skills/actions. For example, LINAK makes additional skills/actions for voice control units connected to adjustable beds running LINAK actuator systems.
The LINAK voice control solution works with Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa.
What is a Smart Home?
The term was coined by IBM in the late '90s – SMART being the abbreviation for ‘Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology’. It is occasionally also referred to as ‘Home Automation’ or ‘Domotics’.
In everyday speech it refers to modern homes that have appliances, lighting and/or electronic devices that can be controlled remotely by the owner, often via a mobile app and/or voice control units.
Typical Smart Home-enabled devices include: TVs, audio and video entertainment systems, refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, toaster ovens, heating and air conditioning units and lighting devices. Some even include camera and security systems.
References
*) source: VoiceBot.ai ‘Smart Speaker Consumer Adoption Report 2019’
**) source: businessinsider.com, Jan 7, 2020, Google just revealed that half a billion people around the world are using the Google Assistant.
