Who is Programming Your Smart Home Control Panel?
There was an interesting article that appeared in Bloomberg Technology in late January talking about the kinds of job skills that are now most in-demand in the technology sector. It is a list that would mainly appeal to tech workers and young people hoping to go into IT. Still, the number one skill on the list is intriguing to us as a dealer of DIY home automation systems. It is intriguing because it tells us something about who will be programming the smart home control panel of the future.
According to Bloomberg Technology, the most in-demand IT skill right now is natural language processing (NLP). Even if you don’t know what that means, rest assured that home automation has a lot to do with the fact that this skill is in such demand. Allow us to explain.
Computers and Voice Recognition
Voice recognition is nothing new. Companies have been working on software capable of recognizing speech input and converting it to text or commands for quite some time. But things have been slow due to the complexity of language. NLP is part of the evolution of speech recognition in that it seeks to create software that can actually ‘learn’ and ‘understand’ language rather than just analyzing sound waves and making educated guesses as to what is being said.
It just so happens that NLP skills are in high demand because the home automation and smartphone industries are demanding it. In the case of the latter, handset designers and manufacturers are focused on the day when end users can operate their phones completely with voice commands. The home automation industry is shooting for something similar.
Complete Voice Control
Current technology is still based on the input paradigm of using a keyboard or home automation touchscreen system to control a home automation system. But the shift to voice control is underway. Even here at Uxari, we are embracing the idea of voice control in the hope of having a device in our inventory at some point in the near future.
With that voice control device installed, our customers will eventually be able to create specific scenes throughout their homes to control lighting, temperature, and other functions. When they want a scene initiated, they will only need to speak a simple sentence to make it so. Feature implementations of voice control will allow for operating individual devices rather than just initiating scenes.
If you’re having difficulty wrapping your brain around the idea of a voice-activated smart home control panel, you already have a good idea of why NLP skills are in such high demand. Software and hardware designers need skilled developers who can make the complex world of voice control a reality.
The World of Endless Possibilities
We are encouraged to learn that software development companies are desperate for workers with NLP skills. It tells us they are aggressively pursuing the capabilities of the human voice for controlling computers, smartphones and a whole host of electronic devices. It also tells us that the possibilities for voice-controlled home automation are nearly endless.
It is only a matter of time before we have home automation systems that require no input other than human speech. We will be able to simply speak to turn the lights on and off. We will be able to arm and disarm our security systems with voice-activated control panels that recognize voices to distinguish between homeowners and burglars. And it’s all going to be pretty awesome.
Who is programming your smart home control panel? Someone with killer NLP skills, that’s who,
Sources:
1.Bloomberg – https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-25/these-are-the-20-fastest-growing-skills-in-the-online-job-market