Now that the red-hot real estate market in China has finally started to cool off, real estate companies are looking to add value to existing properties by embracing smart home technology. Two key areas are driving a rapid increase in the smart home enhancement demand. One is convenience and the other is security. Today the smart home market is estimated to be a $7 billion industry in China. That number is expected to be approximately $35 billion by 2025.
What is smart home enhancement? It’s the process of automating all kinds of functions, appliances and devices by leveraging internet connectivity. A key element of making this happen is the Internet of Things (IoT). This is when household devices and processes (things) are incorporated with the ability to communicate via internet connections and remote control systems – such as a smartphone – or some other manner of automated system.
For example, air conditioning units can be programmed to automatically turn on or off by sensing humidity and temperature levels. A homeowner can control his or her home’s heating or cooling from their office or while traveling via their smartphone. They can do the same with the home’s security systems, which can include remote accessing video monitors and alarms.
The possibilities are endless. An elevator can be waiting for a resident at the moment one comes back home and walks into his or her apartment building. Food preparation devices can be manipulated remotely to get dinner started while a person rides home on the bus. Everything from the lights and television to robotic carpet sweepers can be controlled via the Internet of Things.
One company that is playing a major role in smart home enhancement is China’s largest retail company, JD.com. A subsidiary of JD.Com is JD IoT. This entity represents China’s largest smart home “ecosystem” comprising more than 25 million homes. It manages more than 4,000 different connected devices represented by 1,000 different brands.
John Zhou is president of JD IoT. He said his company has become the provider of choice as thousands of homeowners are opting to incorporate smart home enhancement to their dwellings every day.
JD.Com founder and chairman Richard Liu said the potential for the smart home sector to become a major area of interest for the giant e-commerce platform is almost unlimited. Richard Liu cites statistics which show that sales of smart home appliances sales in China are expected to increase from their 4.6% rate today to 13.7% by 2023.
To gives just two specific examples, sales of smart curtain sales on JD.Com increased by a factor of 22 times in 2019. The sale of smart locks increased by an astounding 62 times in the same year.
JD IoT has signed more than 20 partnership deals with top-tier real estate companies in 30 cities. Some of the most popular items being sold through these partnerships are facial recognition for building access systems, smart parking payment, QR code access for visitors, various management apps and more.
One of the real estate partners JD IoT is working with is Tianrun Real Estate. Cheng Jiang is a marketing director with Tainrun. He praised JD IoT as the most comprehensive and technologically advanced provider of smart home enhancement in China. He said that, thanks to JD IoT technology, residents are enjoying a level of convenience and security far superior to anything they could have imagined just a few years ago.
Smart home enhancement is a benefit that goes well beyond convenience and security. It is also playing an extremely important role in managing and reducing energy consumption. JD recently entered into a major partnership with State Grid, the Chinese national energy company, to enhance efficiency of power usage with IoT.
