The Verge’s coverage of Amazon’s renewed smart home strategy makes something very clear: Alexa wants to be the center of your devices, routines, and eventually your entire home ecosystem. But even with better integrations and new APIs, the smart home still suffers from the same chronic issue – it’s too fragmented for the average person to trust it.
Consumers don’t want to think about protocols, hubs, or which devices are “certified” for which platform. They want lights that turn on, locks that lock, and routines that don’t break every third Tuesday. Until that’s solved, the smart home will remain a hobby for enthusiasts and a headache for everyone else.
Amazon is pushing hard because whoever unifies the smart home wins the long game. But unification requires cooperation across companies that historically prefer walled gardens over shared standards. This is less a technology problem and more an ecosystem ego problem.
Will consumers ever get a plug-and-play smart home experience that just works? And what happens if the “ecosystem wars” keep dragging on while users lose patience?
Related article: The Verge
