Real Smart Homes Should Work Offline
February 12, 2024
With all the great things that smart home technology can do around our homes, I think we often lose sight of how dependent all of that is on the internet. It became very apparent to me recently when our internet service was interrupted. I’ve given this scenario a significant amount of thought around our smart home technology planning as it happens more often than we’d like but have no control of.
That being said, it is possible for smart homes to work offline to a certain extent. While many smart home devices rely on an internet connection for remote access, updates and integrations with other services, some devices can function locally without needing internet connectivity.
A truly smart home should be independent and autonomous. Modern smart homes face significant risks such as functionality loss during outages and privacy breaches. There’s a need for tech companies to refocus on local, offline operability without compromising convenience and functionality.
Your smart home likely depends on an electronic brain thousands of miles away. But as we grow more dependent on home automation, it’s crucial that our smart homes continue to work even if the internet is down.
Modern off-the-shelf smart homes are fundamentally dependent on internet connectivity. From voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa to smart thermostats like Nest, these devices require a constant internet connection to function fully. This dependence on online connectivity exposes users to several risks, including the loss of functionality during network outages and even potential breaches of privacy.
Many smart home devices can be controlled directly from a smartphone or tablet via a local WiFi network, even if the internet connection is down. This allows you to still turn on lights, adjust thermostats, or perform other tasks within your home. This is essential from a user experience perspective especially when it comes to basic services like lighting. Along the same lines, our smart home plan will include operations resembling non-smart home for guests unfamiliar with the technology integrated into our home.
Some smart home ecosystems, like Samsung SmartThings or Hubitat Elevation, utilize a central hub that communicates directly with devices over a local network. These hubs can often continue to operate even when the internet connection is lost, allowing basic automation and control functions to still work. While such platforms can manage a variety of home automations, there’s a reason the majority of people aren’t running them. It’s nowhere near as simple or inexpensive as buying a bunch of cloud-dependent smart home gadgets off Amazon, and it requires a bit of technical know how, more deeply researched products for compatibility, and so on.
Local control in smart homes not only offers potential solutions to connectivity and privacy issues, but also adds an element of reliability. If the smart systems are based in the house, you’re in control, not a distant server or a tech company’s policies.
Some companies, like Hubitat and Home Assistant, offer some automation from a local control, privacy-first perspective. While such platforms are veritable Swiss Army knives of home automation, there’s a reason the majority of people aren’t running them. It’s nowhere near as simple or inexpensive as buying a bunch of cloud-dependent smart home gadgets off Amazon, and it requires you wrestle with plugins, potentially dig into bits of code yourself, more deeply research products for compatibility, and so on.
But for the smart home enthusiasts who dive into it, it’s more than worth it as it results in a home that’s not crippled by network outages or requires you to hand over piles of personal data to companies (or the hackers that intrude upon them).
Certain smart home systems allow for automation routines to be programmed directly into the devices or hubs themselves. This means that even if the internet is unavailable, scheduled actions like turning on lights at a certain time can still occur.
Some smart home devices utilize Bluetooth for local connections instead of relying on WiFi or the internet. These devices can continue to function even if internet access is disrupted, as long as the controlling device is within Bluetooth range.
However, it’s important to note that the full functionality and convenience of smart home devices may be limited when operating offline. Features like remote monitoring, voice control via virtual assistants, and integrations with third-party services typically require an internet connection. Additionally, certain devices may require occasional internet access for firmware updates or syncing data with cloud services.
Creating a smart home that can operate entirely offline is easier said than done. Modern smart devices are designed to leverage the power of cloud computing with AI algorithms that learn from vast amounts of aggregated data. The onus is on tech companies to develop devices that can operate independently while still providing the convenience and functionality users have come to expect.
But we’re starting to see more local AI processing power in our devices. For example, Apple’s Core ML lets developers run AI algorithms locally on your Apple device, so that things like speech recognition or translation can run without an internet connection to the cloud. It’s also possible to run generative AI Large Language Models on your home computer, which might be another component of local control for future smart homes.
An internet connection is certainly an essential part of modern life, but it should never be so essential that being disconnected means you can’t open a door, turn on the lights, or turn off your devices.
What I’ve been outlining here is what’s called edge compute in many other industries. Overall, edge computing offers a decentralized approach to data processing and analysis, providing numerous benefits including reduced latency, optimized bandwidth usage, enhanced privacy and security, improved resilience, scalability, real-time insights, and offline functionality. These advantages make edge computing particularly well-suited for a wide range of use cases spanning across industries, from IoT and industrial automation to healthcare, smart cities, and beyond.
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