Internet (IP) for home appliances allows users to make their smart phone a central controller for their house. This is taking off by storm and for new appliances will become so common it is no longer an ‘added extra’. See how it works here.
It can actually reduce the cost of the product in some cases. As the product can be configured by the user or installer’s smartphone or computer there is less pressure for the product to have a large display and many buttons or touch screen.
In a world of extreme standardisation across products, adding Internet (IP) connectivity opens up opportunity for customer engagement and product differentiation.
Imagine a heater and cooler that provided energy use and effective performance figures for customers to review and work on reducing their power consumption. But it goes further than that – they can then interact with other users in the same climatic region and compare their results and discuss how they have improved them. Not only is it engagement but you now have access to an ‘Application Engineering Team’ consisting of all your customers.
Apart from engagement both directly and socially it provides a mechanism for support. If the device has internet reporting back to head office, usage metrics for the product can be automatically collected, firmware updated in the field as needed and potentially a great reduction in service costs.
Don Alan uses two different TCP/IP stacks according to the requirement. Even our smallest systems provide multiple concurrent connections. IPV4 and IPV6 are supported with the HTTPS (Secure SSL sockets) also available.
We can provide autodetect software and skeleton applications for iPhone, PC, MAC, and Android to make your developers and customer’s life easier – not to mention the reduction in customer support.
Home appliance internet connectivity is normally done with the home appliance being a host providing services directly to the connected smartphones or computers. This is most convenient and easiest to set up in local control environments. If global data gathering is required you can read about the options we offer under Industrial Internet Connectivity.
INNOVATIVE DESIGN? ELECTRONICS EXPERTISE? PROBLEM-SOLVING?
Getting the product specification right is an essential start to any round of product design. So when you contact Don Alan, we will listen carefully to your requirements, ask questions, make suggestions, and use our experience to assist in the development of a detailed specification.
And you’ll be in contact with our most experienced and skilled engineers – there are no salesman in the middle. This means we’ll arrive at an optimal specification quickly, and be able to provide realistic unit cost targets.
We look forward to talking with you.