A while back we talked on this blog about the many advantages of voice recognition technologies applied to home care solutions for aging seniors, and also about how voice control as a form of home management was becoming a major trend in the connected home industry. Not surprisingly, with new advancements and integrations, voice activation technologies are also proving to have the potential to become a cornerstone for the professional security industry.
Home management assistants equipped with voice recognition technology were a rising trend among consumers last year, and have already become the latest user interface for home control, offering a viable alternative to smartphones and apps. Consumers love their voice-controlled assistants; they are simple, intuitive and very easy to use. It all started with Amazon’s Echo’s stellar success, then came Google Home, and now Apple is about to release its Siri-controlled home speaker, HomePod, proving that the trend is here to stay.
These home assistants can perform all kind of functions: from retrieving information such as weather forecasts or traffic reports, making online purchases and controlling entertainment functions to even remotely managing connected home appliances, such as a thermostat or smart lightbulbs. Voice control is already becoming a staple in the connected home market, thanks to its increasing reliability and the convenience it offers. But voice control has almost endless applications, and it certainly shows the potential to become extremely useful for the safety and security industry as well. We are confident that voice recognition will soon be used to remotely control home security devices, offering homeowners both convenience and security.
The convenience side of voice recognition is about the possibility to turn the alarm on and off or trigger certain scenarios in the home with just a short command, without having to use any kind of app or control panel. The security side is about limiting these possibilities to authorized users. Also, voice will be useful to call for help in case of emergency, and eventually even differentiate emotions in the user’s voice, being able to distinguish a normal emergency from a situation of duress, offering an added layer of security for homeowners.
However, there are several challenges to overcome if we wish to successfully introduce voice activation devices in the professional security industry. Some of these difficulties are of a technical nature, like the necessity to use advanced voice analytics algorithms, biometrics and specific pattern recognition to correctly understand what is being said, filter out other noises and voices and, of course, be able to identify and differentiate particular users. Other challenges include the impossibility of using open communication protocols for these purposes, and the need to look for ways around them, such as adding other security measures, like additional password request integrations, or even biometric identification.
Voice recognition technologies have proved to offer convenience when applied in the connected home environment, and their simplicity and ease of use have already made them a favorite among consumers. The next step will be to overcome the challenges mentioned and to prove how professional security can benefit from the many uses of voice control, and how this technology can also provide enhanced security features for homeowners.
We invite you to visit our innovation corner at IFSEC International and see how we are bridging between voice and security with our voice-activated home security solution. Click to set a meeting!
