Forget iPads. Here's Why The iWatch Could Be Your Next Smart Home Controller

This Could Be Your Next Smart Home Controller

With news breaking yesterday thatApple AAPL -0.91% had the forethought to file a patent five years around smart home control scenarios with the iPhone, there’s no doubt that the prescient company from Cupertino has probably spent a development cycle or two – if the rumors about the iWatch are indeed true – on how a smartwatch could be a key part of the smart home.

And truth be told, they wouldn’t be the only ones. Existing smartwatch makers have told in interviews I’ve done for Smartwatch.FM that they’re are looking at ways to connect their smartwatches to the smart home.

So what would a smartwatch controller for the smart home do? Well, much like the smart home control apps available today from the likes of Vivint,Lowe’s, SmartThings and others, a smartwatch could receive alerts from sensors notifying home owners about any home security events or information about home energy usage, or it could even provide command capabilities to enable things like locking doors, controlling a home’s temperature or turning on lights.

The natural next question is whether people would want to use their watch as a smart home information and command center. Well, much like with how people are discovering the smartwatch is a good companion device to their smartphone or tablet – in large part because it’s not always convenient to have those screens in front of you – a smartwatch could pair well with either of those devices as a fairly passive companion device to present monitoring information or it could be a device that enables basic commands either through a fully independent smartwatch or even through a companion-watch.

I believe the first implementations of smart home-connected smartwatches will mainly provide monitoring data, but over time these watches will allow their owners to execute basic smart home control commands.

Will Apple be the first to enable these scenarios with the iWatch? Maybe. But no matter who the manufacturer is, I do think some of you no doubt use your watch to lock the door,  turn on the lights within the next few years.

Michael Wolf is Chief Analyst for NextMarket Insights and proprietor of Smartwatch.FM, a site all about smartwatches. You can read more thoughts on smartwatches as part of the smart home here as well as sign up for smartwatch profiles and news alerts.