Smart homes

智能家居

Tech firms think the home is the next big computing platform

科技公司認(rèn)為家宅是下一個(gè)大型計(jì)算平臺(tái)

Many of the technologies needed to make smart homes work already exist

讓智能家居運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)所需的許多技術(shù)已經(jīng)實(shí)現(xiàn)

Sep 12th 2019

FILM BUFFS will tell you that watching a movie on the big screen is a much more immersive experience than watching it at home. But if Matthew Ball gets his way, that might not be true for much longer. Mr Ball—who used to be head of strategy at Amazon Studios, the tech firm’s TV division—spends a lot of time thinking about the future of film and TV. He is especially interested in the possibilities offered by connected, computerised homes.

電影愛好者會(huì)告訴你，在大屏幕上看電影比在家看電影更有身臨其境的感覺。但如果馬修·鮑爾(Matthew Ball)能如愿以償，這種情況可能不會(huì)持續(xù)太久。鮑爾先生曾經(jīng)是亞馬遜公司電視部門的戰(zhàn)略主管，他花了很多時(shí)間思考電影和電視的未來。他對(duì)聯(lián)網(wǎng)的電腦化家庭所提供的發(fā)展?jié)摿μ貏e感興趣。

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Imagine an action film, he says, in which a smart television, equipped with the sorts of gaze-tracking cameras already used in smartphones, can wait until it has a viewer’s full attention before showing a monster leaping out from behind a door. Or a horror film which commandeers a house’s lights and makes them flicker at the appropriate moment, or plays eerie sounds—even whispering the viewer’s name—from speakers in another room.

他說，想象一下，在一部動(dòng)作電影中，一臺(tái)配備了智能手機(jī)上已經(jīng)使用的那種視線追蹤攝像頭的智能電視，可以等到觀眾完全集中注意力后，才會(huì)顯示出一個(gè)怪物從門后跳出來?；蛘呤且徊靠植离娪?，它霸占了一所房子的燈光，讓它們?cè)谶m當(dāng)?shù)臅r(shí)刻閃爍，或者播放怪異的聲音——甚至是在另一個(gè)房間的音箱里低聲說出觀眾的名字。

詞匯

gaze-tracking/視線跟蹤

commandeer/征用；霸占

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For now, Mr Ball admits that such ideas are experimental. But many of the technologies necessary to make them work already exist. Consumers can buy smart light bulbs, such as Hue from Philips, a Dutch electronics giant, which can be switched on or off by phone or voice and can generate thousands of tones and shades. Viewers of “12 Monkeys”, an American science-fiction TV series released in 2015, can download an app that will sync with their light bulbs, automatically changing their colour and brightness to match the mood of an episode moment by moment.

目前，波爾先生承認(rèn)這些想法都是實(shí)驗(yàn)性的。但是許多必要的技術(shù)已經(jīng)存在。消費(fèi)者可以購(gòu)買智能燈泡，比如荷蘭電子巨頭飛利浦的Hue，它可以通過電話或語音開關(guān)，產(chǎn)生數(shù)千種色調(diào)和陰影。觀看2015年上映的美國(guó)科幻電視劇《12只猴子》(12 Monkeys)的觀眾可以下載一款應(yīng)用，該應(yīng)用可以使他們的燈泡同步，自動(dòng)改變燈泡的顏色和亮度，以配合每一集的氣氛。

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Consumers can use voice-activated window-blinds and mattresses that track heart rate and sleep patterns

消費(fèi)者可以使用聲控窗簾和床墊來跟蹤心率和睡眠模式

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GSMA Intelligence, the research arm of a mobile-industry trade body, reckons that smart homes will be the biggest part of the consumer side of the IoT (see chart). For now, most of the applications are more prosaic than powering a futuristic home cinema. Besides light bulbs, technophile consumers can use voice-activated window-blinds, robotic vacuum cleaners and mattresses that track heart rate, movement and sleep patterns (and also nag you about your poor “sleep hygiene”). Wifi-connected, camera-equipped fridges can let you check their contents from anywhere in the world.

移動(dòng)產(chǎn)業(yè)貿(mào)易機(jī)構(gòu)的研究機(jī)構(gòu)GSMA Intelligence估計(jì)，智能家居將成為物聯(lián)網(wǎng)消費(fèi)領(lǐng)域的最大組成部分(見圖表)。目前，大多數(shù)應(yīng)用程序相對(duì)于支持為未來的家庭影院而言要乏味得多。除了電燈泡，技術(shù)愛好者還可以使用聲控百葉窗、機(jī)器人吸塵器和用于跟蹤心率、運(yùn)動(dòng)和睡眠模式的床墊(還可以嘮叨你糟糕的“睡眠衛(wèi)生”)。配有攝像頭的無線網(wǎng)絡(luò)冰箱可以讓你在世界任何地方查看冰箱里的東西。

詞匯

Prosaic/平凡的，乏味的；散文體的

IoT/物聯(lián)網(wǎng)（Internet of Things）

Security is another popular use, says Alexandra Rehak, who heads the IoT division of Ovum, a firm of tech analysts. Smart doorbells have built-in surveillance cameras and motion detectors. Their users can choose to let visitors in by unlocking the door over the phone.

科技分析公司Ovum物聯(lián)網(wǎng)部門負(fù)責(zé)人Alexandra Rehak說，安全是另一種主流的用途。智能門鈴內(nèi)置了監(jiān)控?cái)z像頭和運(yùn)動(dòng)探測(cè)器。他們的用戶可以選擇通過電話（聽筒）開門讓訪客進(jìn)入。

詞匯

Surveillance/監(jiān)督；監(jiān)視

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IDC, a market-analysis firm, reckons 833m smart-home gadgets of various sorts will be sold in 2019, a number that it forecasts will double by 2023. Most of these devices sell themselves on a combination of comfort, convenience and cost-saving.

市場(chǎng)分析公司IDC估計(jì)，到2019年，各類智能家居設(shè)備的銷量將達(dá)到8.33億部，預(yù)計(jì)到2023年，這個(gè)數(shù)字將翻一番。這些設(shè)備大多以舒適、方便和節(jié)約成本為賣點(diǎn)。

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And he built a crooked house

他，建了一座歪歪扭扭的房子

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It all sounds good in theory. But Ben Wood, the chief of research at CCS Insight, another firm of analysts, says that installing and maintaining smart gadgets—let alone trying to get them to work together—can be a chore. “It’s a very Heath Robinson kind of patchwork, a jigsaw puzzle of connectivity.” He should know: besides his day job, Mr Wood is a keen tinkerer who has converted his own house into a home smart enough to win a European award in 2017, complete with voice-activated lighting and windows, room-by-room heating, phone-controlled speakers and a camera-equipped door that can be locked or unlocked from anywhere in the world.

從理論上講，這一切聽起來都不錯(cuò)。但另一家分析公司CCS Insight的研究主管本?伍德（Ben Wood）說，安裝和維護(hù)智能設(shè)備可能是件苦差事，更不用說讓它們協(xié)同工作了?！斑@是一種非常像希斯·羅賓遜(Heath Robinson)式的拼貼，一種連接的拼圖游戲。“他清楚地知道:除了他的日常工作,伍德是一個(gè)敏銳的愛動(dòng)手琢磨的人，他將自己的房子改造成一間足以贏得2017年度歐洲獎(jiǎng)的智慧房屋,配有聲控照明和窗戶,逐個(gè)房間的供暖系統(tǒng),手機(jī)控制的音箱和一個(gè)配有攝像頭的門,使得他無論身處何方，都能夠開啟或者鎖上自家的門。

詞匯

Jigsaw/拼圖玩具

Tinkerer/修補(bǔ)匠；多面手

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Making it work required installing 2km of network cabling, all of which feeds back into a cupboard containing a set of rack-mounted computers that would not look out of place in a data centre. Another problem is that products from one manufacturer often fail to work well with those from another. Standards do exist: Zigbee and Z-wave are wireless networking protocols designed for the type of low-power radios found in smart-home gadgetry. But many firms either use proprietary standards or implement existing standards in ways that prevent their products working with those from other companies.

但要想讓它運(yùn)行，需要安裝2公里長(zhǎng)的網(wǎng)絡(luò)電纜，所有的電纜都反饋到一個(gè)柜中，柜中裝有一組機(jī)架式的計(jì)算機(jī)，這些計(jì)算機(jī)在數(shù)據(jù)中心看起來不會(huì)顯得格格不入。另一個(gè)問題是，來自一個(gè)制造商的產(chǎn)品常常不能與來自另一個(gè)制造商的產(chǎn)品很好地適配。標(biāo)準(zhǔn)確實(shí)存在:Zigbee和Z-wave是一種無線網(wǎng)絡(luò)協(xié)議，專為智能家居設(shè)備中使用的低功耗無線電設(shè)計(jì)。但許多公司要么使用專有標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，要么以某種方式實(shí)施現(xiàn)有標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，以防止其產(chǎn)品與其他公司的產(chǎn)品兼容。

詞匯

Cupboard/ ?碗柜；食櫥

Protocol/協(xié)議；草案；禮儀

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Many companies are involved. Tim Hatt at GSMA Intelligence says that telecoms firms are keen to find new, higher-margin businesses rather than simply acting as “bit pipes”, so they have built smart-home offerings as well. Vodafone, a telecoms company, advertises the V-Home hub as a central control point for smart-home devices. SK Telecom, a South Korean firm, has the Nugu. AT&T, an American company, offers its Smart Home Manager. Others are startups, such as Wink, which launched with backing from General Electric. In Britain, even British Gas, a former state-owned energy monopoly, has got in on the act. It launched Hive, a smart-home ecosystem in 2013.

許多公司都參與其中。GSMA Intelligence的蒂姆?哈特(Tim Hatt)表示，電信公司熱衷于尋找新的、利潤(rùn)率更高的業(yè)務(wù)，而不只是充當(dāng)“比特管道”，因此它們也推出了智能家居產(chǎn)品。沃達(dá)豐，一家電信公司，宣傳V-Home中心是智能家居設(shè)備的中央控制點(diǎn)。韓國(guó)SK電訊公司擁有Nugu。美國(guó)電話電報(bào)公司(AT&T)提供智能家居管理服務(wù)。其他還有一些初創(chuàng)企業(yè)，比如Wink，它是在通用電氣(General Electric)的支持下成立的。在英國(guó)，甚至前國(guó)有能源壟斷企業(yè)英國(guó)天然氣公司(British Gas)也加入了這一行列。它在2013年推出了智能家居生態(tài)系統(tǒng)Hive。

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That fragmentation means risks for early adopters and highlights some of the problems involved in installing gadgets that rely on external services. Last year Logitech, a Swiss company, stopped supporting its Harmony Link smart hub, which was designed to get smartphones to act as universal remote controls. In 2016 Revolv, a smart-home startup that had been bought by Google, announced that its app and home hub were being abandoned, leaving the firm’s customers high and dry. “My house will stop working,” wrote one disgruntled user.

這種碎片化對(duì)早期采用者意味著風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，并凸顯了安裝依賴外部服務(wù)的小工具所涉及的一些問題。去年，瑞士公司羅技(Logitech)停止了對(duì)其Harmony Link智能中心的支持，該中心旨在讓智能手機(jī)充當(dāng)通用遙控器。2016年，被谷歌收購(gòu)的智能家居初創(chuàng)企業(yè)Revolv宣布，放棄其應(yīng)用程序和home hub，這讓公司的客戶陷入困境。一位不滿的用戶寫道:“我的房子要停工了?！?/p>

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The companies best placed to solve the fragmentation problem, and thus to dominate the business, are the existing internet giants—and specifically Google and Amazon, thanks to their lead in the fast-growing smart-speaker market. Until fairly recently, says Mr Wood, the assumption was that smart homes would be controlled from phones. But, he says, the reality is different. “Pulling out your phone, unlocking it, tapping an app, then using it to turn the lights on, is much more complicated and annoying than simply walking across the room and pushing a button”. Voice, he says, is by far the most convenient user-interface.

那些最優(yōu)先解決碎片化的問題，從而主導(dǎo)業(yè)務(wù)的公司是現(xiàn)有的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)巨頭，特別是谷歌和亞馬遜，這得益于它們?cè)诳焖僭鲩L(zhǎng)的智能音箱市場(chǎng)上的領(lǐng)先地位。伍德表示，直到最近，人們還以為智能家居將由手機(jī)控制。但是，他說，現(xiàn)實(shí)是不同的。“拿出你的手機(jī)，解鎖，點(diǎn)擊一個(gè)應(yīng)用程序，然后用它來開燈，這比在房間里走過去按下一個(gè)按鈕要復(fù)雜得多，也煩人得多?！彼f，語音是目前為止最方便的用戶界面。

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Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home, the two firms’ smart-speaker products, already have greater market penetration than rival smart-home hubs. Canalys, a market-research firm, reckons that 78m smart speakers were sold in 2018, more than double the number in 2017, with Amazon and Google accounting for roughly a third each, and products from Alibaba, Xiaomi and Baidu, a trio of Chinese tech giants, making up most of the rest (see chart). According to surveys, around a quarter of American smart-speaker owners already use them to control at least one other device.

亞馬遜的Alexa和谷歌Home，這兩家公司的智能音箱產(chǎn)品，已經(jīng)比競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手的智能家居中心擁有更大的市場(chǎng)滲透率。市場(chǎng)研究公司Canalys估計(jì),在2018年有78000000個(gè)智能音箱被售出,這是2017年的兩倍多,亞馬遜和谷歌占了大約三分之一,從阿里巴巴,小米和百度,三個(gè)中國(guó)科技巨頭的產(chǎn)品來看,占據(jù)了其余市場(chǎng)的絕大部分(見上述圖表)。調(diào)查顯示，大約四分之一的美國(guó)智能音箱用戶已經(jīng)在使用智能音箱控制至少一種其他設(shè)備。

詞匯

Penetration/滲透；突破

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Having a home’s smart gadgets controlled via a central hub simplifies things for consumers. Consumer-goods firms are increasingly keen to ensure that their devices are capable of working with Google and Amazon’s speakers. Many tech firms have set up certification programmes, as well as smartphone-style app stores aimed at third-party developers keen to integrate Alexa and Google Home with their own products.

通過中心集線器控制家庭智能設(shè)備可以簡(jiǎn)化消費(fèi)者的操作。消費(fèi)品公司越來越熱衷于確保他們的設(shè)備能夠與谷歌和亞馬遜的音箱兼容。許多科技公司已經(jīng)設(shè)立了認(rèn)證項(xiàng)目，以及智能手機(jī)風(fēng)格的應(yīng)用商店，面向于那些熱衷于將Alexa和谷歌Home與自己的產(chǎn)品集成在一起的第三方開發(fā)者。

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The tech firms are chasing two prizes, says Ms Rehak. The first is that, through a combination of standardisation and convenience, those who master the smart-speaker market will come to occupy the same dominant position as Google and Apple do in the smartphone market.

瑞克（Rehak）女士說，科技公司正在追逐兩個(gè)獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)。首先，通過標(biāo)準(zhǔn)化和便捷性的結(jié)合，那些掌握智能音箱市場(chǎng)的公司將會(huì)在智能手機(jī)市場(chǎng)占據(jù)與谷歌和蘋果一樣的主導(dǎo)地位。

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The second is that connected homes offer a rich seam of data to be mined for consumer preferences. “What these companies are really good at is making use of data to sell you things you think you want,” she says. Smart televisions report the programmes their users are watching. A camera-equipped fridge might reveal useful information on its owners’ eating habits. Even simple data on when the lights are on can reveal occupancy patterns, or when a home owner is awake or asleep. There are already reports of arguments between smart-device makers and the tech giants over who has access to those data, and how much must be collected.

第二，聯(lián)網(wǎng)房屋提供了豐富的數(shù)據(jù)，可供挖掘消費(fèi)者偏好。她說:“這些公司真正擅長(zhǎng)的是利用數(shù)據(jù)向你出售你認(rèn)為自己想要的東西?！敝悄茈娨晥?bào)告用戶正在觀看的節(jié)目。一臺(tái)裝有攝像頭的冰箱可能會(huì)透露主人的飲食習(xí)慣。即使是關(guān)于燈亮著的時(shí)間的簡(jiǎn)單數(shù)據(jù)，也能揭示入住模式，或房主是醒著還是睡著。已經(jīng)有報(bào)道稱，智能設(shè)備制造商和科技巨頭之間就誰有權(quán)訪問這些數(shù)據(jù)以及必須收集多少數(shù)據(jù)展開了爭(zhēng)論。

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As for consumers, Ms Rehak thinks that many are still ignorant about the basic trade-off of the smart-home model, in which a service is provided in return for “collecting a whole bunch of personal data”. Even among the cognoscenti, there are differing opinions. “I love this stuff,” says Mr Wood. “But I have some colleagues who refuse to have any of these things in their houses at all.”

至于消費(fèi)者，瑞克女士認(rèn)為許多人仍然不知道智能家居模式的基本權(quán)衡，即提供一項(xiàng)服務(wù)來?yè)Q取“收集大量個(gè)人數(shù)據(jù)”。即使是行家也有不同的看法。伍德說:“我喜歡這種東西?！保暗业囊恍┩戮芙^把這些東西放在家里。”

詞匯

Ignorant/無知的；愚昧的