Changhong, a home appliance maker in China, displays its smart home products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January 2014 (XINHUA)

Huang Xingwen, a 60-year-old Beijing resident, finally agreed to buy a floor-sweeping robot after weeks of persistent persuasion by her daughter.

"My daughter said that the intelligent machine could go under the bed, clean every corner in the house, and we wouldn't even need to charge it as it can automatically find where the outlet is and charge itself," Huang said.

The new, smart tool cost her 1,000 yuan ($157), but after two weeks, Huang abandoned it. "If there is something in front of it, like a chair, the robotic cleaner changes its path, resulting in cleaning some parts of the room many times but leaving other parts untouched," she said. "I have to watch it and move the chairs at the right time. It was so troublesome that I just prefer to use a broom!"

Huang's daughter, Ye Zixuan, is not satisfied with the robot's function either. "The noise is a bit unbearable, especially when I am working at home," said the fashion designer. "Besides, it spends more than 30 minutes to sweep our two-bedroom apartment and sometimes it takes a long time to move from one bedroom to another."

Ye said that she had intended to buy a window-cleaning robot as well, but after trying the sweeping robot, she has abandoned this plan.

How smart? 

Lu Xiaolu is also hesitating to buy "smart home appliances" for her new apartment.

"My fiancé is a fan of smart utilities and wanted to equip a whole set in our new home. But after some initial research on products currently available, I don't think it is an ideal time," she said.

If installed, a smart home system that Lu could check online would allow her to control multiple appliances from afar. It would also notify her if a stranger tried to break into her home via an integrated real-time video camera.

"With this remote-powered system, we could turn on the air conditioner or stove on our way back home; but it is not necessary for us as the appliances we use now already have a pre-timing function," Lu explained. "As for the video camera, since home theft is so rare, it is not practical either."

For Shu Xingtong, a banker in Beijing, having to control everything from a smartphone isn't impressive. "Everything in the home should be smart by itself, without having to rely on control from other appliances."

Shu believes a smart refrigerator should be able to calculate how many eggs he eats on average each week, and automatically make an order online when he is running out of stock.

"If that is the case, what do humans do?" Huang responded. After retiring, Huang spends most of her day at home, cleaning and cooking. "It is part of my life. Even before retirement, I did most of the housework at home. These smart things will only make young people lazier," she complained.

If laziness is a mild side effect, safety is the real threat, according to Bai Yunqi, a software programmer.

"The benefits of a technology-enhanced home are plenty, but being saturated with so much data and information is kind of risky. If hacking sounds too technological for average consumers, there is a genuine concern that appliances being switched on and used without human supervision could be disastrous," he noted.

"It is true," Lu said. "As the 4G mobile connection doesn't always work well in the subway, it may even cause trouble when I need to turn the power off but the Internet connection isn't working."

"These were also concerns for the developers," said Li Li, General Manager of the Haier Smart Home Unit, a leading home appliance maker in China. "We brainstormed all the potential risks of our products before we put them into market."

But Li admitted that existing smart home products have so far only grabbed interest among technology enthusiasts and have not received substantial demand from the general public.

According to Li, the sector has not yet created quality user experiences, and the so-called smart equipment has not achieved full connectivity. She expects the sector will not see a boom for another two years.

"When most people don't even have a dishwasher and regard it as a waste of money, the idea of a smart home might be too far off," Li said.

A visitor tries a smart chairlift at the Aged Care and Abilities Fair held in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, in November 2014 (XINHUA)

Market potential 

Tech giants, however, have already made big bets on China's market. In fact, Juniper Research, a leading market research company in the UK, expects China's smart home market to expand to 100 billion yuan ($15.7 billion) by 2018. In 2014, the market was only 28.61 billion yuan ($4.49 billion).

A survey by Chinese tech news portal Zol.com in 2014 showed that 54.9 percent of the respondents were "very interested" in converting their homes into smart homes, while 36.8 percent were "fairly interested."

Industry insiders claim that these bets necessitate a shift in the tech companies' business models if smart home technology is to catch on in China.

"Compared to the traditional competition mode where each company fights for itself, the smart home system actually requires them to unite," said Liu Shiyun, a Beijing-based home appliance analyst. "This is crucial for the smart home market as no one can win alone. It works better as a system."

In March 2014, Haier and its major rival Midea launched their respective smart-living platforms in succession, both of which allow smart products made by competing companies to be connected with them. Haier's partners on its U+ platform include web portal Tencent, handset maker Meizu and electric car maker Tesla, while the platform is also linked with Apple's HomeKit.

Online retailer JD.com, e-commerce giant Alibaba, and handset maker Xiaomi each unveiled smart home plans last year as well. JD.com has also launched an incubator service to help hardware makers build smart home products, which will be fitted with the online retailer's module and linked to its cloud-computing service.

Alibaba, meanwhile, offers manufacturers its big data and cloud-computing services and a platform to sell their products. Additionally, Alibaba has teamed up with Midea to co-produce a smart air conditioner, which is now available for sale online.

"We have some big players in the market, and all have their own boundaries, but they have to change and make connections to provide the perfect user experience for consumers," said Wang Ye, Vice President of Haier.

"Before smartphones came out, people only used cellphones to make calls and send text messages. Few people had imagined we could do so many things with a phone," Wang added. "The same will happen with smart home systems, when refrigerators are no longer simple refrigerators and they make those egg orders automatically."

Copyedited by Mara Lee Durrell

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