Apple HomeKit can do without walled gardens

USA: Is Apple game for graceful failure and playing along with others?

Well, that seems to be something it can think about.

In line with the expected Apple HomeKit announcement soon, Argus Insights has looked to reviews nearly half a million consumer app and device reviews, and two million mentions about Smart Home on Twitter in the past two years to create a list of the 5 must have features Apple needs to succeed.

1. Quality and Reliability: Quality and reliability matter more than ever as the market moves beyond earlier adopters.

2. Connectivity: Connectivity is still the main issue impacting consumers, across both the ‘Do It For Me’ and ‘Do It Yourself’ consumer bases.

3. Graceful Failure: The next generation of Smart Home devices and services need to fail gracefully to avoid stalls in the user experience.

4. Accessibility: As the hub of the home, a voice controlled assistant needs to be omnipresent; it must be constantly accessible through a variety of media.

5. Play Well With Others: In the Smart Home show-down of walled versus community gardens, consumers show a preference for simplicity in all devices working together, regardless of OS or wireless protocol.

As John Feland, Founder and CEO, Argus Insights distills, “the surprise success of Echo as the interface of Smart Home has forced Apple to rethink their HomeKit strategy, Apple must stage a resurgence of their historical user friendly combination of hardware and software that has been lost in recent endeavors like HealthKit.”