The root cause of Japanese housing equipment "digitalization does not progress"!Why is smart home not spreading in earnest?

2/10 14:01 Delivery

「あれば便利かもしれないけど、別になくても困らない」というイメージを持たれがちなスマートホーム（写真：Fast&Slow／ PIXTA）

Smart Home has been sluggish in the Japanese housing market for more than 20 years.The boom has been visited in a cycle of about 10 years, and many housing companies and home appliance manufacturers have already commercialized, but they have not become full -scale.It has been revealed that digitalization of Japanese society is delayed compared to the world due to the corona evil, but in this field, Japan is delayed compared to the United States and China.Such a "smart home" was included in the "Digital Denenten City State Concept", a highlight of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

In Japan, telework and online shopping have become popular at once, and administrative services, online classes, and remote medical treatments with My Number Cards have begun."Housing" has become connected to everywhere, such as workplaces, governments, schools, pharmacies, and retail, and to make living in rural areas more convenient and comfortable, from "housing".It is necessary to optimize the usage environment using digital technology.Already, the spread of all households of smart meters (power meters with communication functions) has been almost completed, and more and more devices that connect home appliances such as air conditioners, water heaters, TV and refrigerators, and the Internet.Can Japan's "smart home" can innovate into a living base that realizes a comfortable and convenient living?

■ What kind of house is a smart home and what kind of house do you imagine?Houses equipped with ICT (information and communication technology) have been commercialized under various names in the past, but this is not yet established.In the early 1990s, when the Internet commercial service was started in Japan, the Echo Net Consortium "Echo Net Consortium" in 1997 was to build a network in houses and connect home appliances and housing equipment from different manufacturers.Established, the development of the standard communication standard "Echo Net" will start.In 2001, when the IT national strategy "E-JAPAN Strategy" began, the spread of the broadband (wide band) Internet under the name of "IT Housing".

In 2011, a “smart house”, which improves energy use as a countermeasure against environmental issues such as global warming, appeared.The home controller equipped with HEMS (a family energy management system) is equipped with a solar power generation system, an air conditioner compatible with "Echo Net Light" and a water heater.In 2017, when Amazon and Google's Japanese -speaking "Smart Speakers" appeared, "IoT Housing" "Intelligent Home", which is equipped with IoT (Internet of Things) technology and AI (artificial intelligence), which connects home appliances to the Internet.Was released.Since then, "smart home appliances" such as robot vacuum cleaners and cookers have increased.

There is no doubt that the basic requirement of "smart home" is that the home appliances and housing equipment installed in the house are "connected" to the in -house communication line and the Internet.■ Smart home appliances, which are not popular, have a PC household holding rate in 2020 in 2020, 86 % of smartphones, and 83 % of the Internet usage (individual) (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications "Information and Communications White Paper" 2021.).However, smart home appliances have a household holding rate of 7.5 %, almost only one digit in the past 10 years.

At the moment, the consumer image of "smart home" may be "it may be convenient, but it is not a problem if it is not separate."According to Misako Furuya (Amazon Japan Offline Sales Division Sales Division), a leading director of the Living Tech Association of Smart Home Agency, which was launched in June 2020It seems to be the fact that it is selling.There is also a "smart remote control" that can operate an infrared remote control of existing home appliances, but this is also a usage that greatly changes the traditional lifestyle.

However, monitor families who have experienced services that can be used in collaboration with various smart home appliances in smart home built by the association for demonstration experiments."I was concerned that the user would soon get tired of" visualizing "the amount of electricity used in the house with HEMS, but I found out that it was surprisingly good."Hiroyuki Yoshida, the chief researcher of the General Technical Research Institute, who has been studying the field for many years at the Yamato House Industry, which launched a smart home about 10 years ago, also believes that the potential need for users is high.

The challenge is that the service can be easily connected to the Internet environment, such as smartphones and personal computers.Both home appliances, housing equipment and services will be offered at an affordable price that consumers can easily use.In Japan, the standard communication standard "Echo Net Light" was developed, and the cumulative shipment of the standard equipment was exceeded 100 million units in 2020.However, home appliance manufacturers initially developed a "enclosure strategy" where competitors were not connected, and it was difficult to make a mutual connection.

On the other hand, in the United States, when an environment in which IoT equipment can be operated via the Internet from the cloud server, an IT -based venture company that links cloud services from different manufacturers using the technology of WebAPI (application programming interface).Using a service called IFTTT (Ifuft) developed in 2010, you can operate devices from different manufacturers, such as smart speakers in Amazon and Google, I robot vacuum cleaners and Philips lighting."Connecting" has begun the spread of "smart home".

In Japan, "Smart Home" using WebAPI will appear around 2017.In Panasonic, we launched a WebAPI cooperation service with the home controller "Aiseg 2", which was a HEMS top share (according to the company's survey), and turned it into an open strategy.In 2018, webapi guidelines for equipment equipped with the standard communication standard "Echo Net Light" were also formulated and released.■ Why does webapi collaboration not proceed?

"Panasonic announced two years ago that Aiseg stated that it would aim for a home IoT de facto (de facto standard), but unfortunately there are almost no other companies that can cooperate with Webapi."A residential supply company hears discouraged voices.Echo Net WebAPI was the first to be used in September 2021 to remotely control Mitsubishi Electric's Eco Cute from Kansai Electric Power's smartphone app.Professor Masao Ichirai of Kanagawa Institute of Technology, who has been working on the spread of eco -nets for many years, said, "We are asking each company to recruit ........................... We will not spread it because we have actually adopted it.I expect it, but the future is unclear.

"At first, we considered the webapi linkage service for domestic IT vendors, but the other party was withdrawn. IFTTT was also a free service, but a paid plan was suddenly announced in September 2020, and free of charge.The functions that can be used have been significantly limited. There is a risk to provide services using external Webapi. "Mr. Yoshida of the Yamato House Industry also shows such a view.Why isn't webapi cooperation in other companies?When I asked Panasonic about the background, he said, "The API is widely opened for a fee. It is a policy decision on the other side to use it using it."Some housing companies use data such as electricity usage and temperature obtained from the home controller to appeal to housing performance and use them for sales activities, but it is also charged to provide that data.。

Major home appliance manufacturers in Japan are aiming to switch from a single hardware sold in conventional home appliances and housing equipment to a high -value -added business model that monitters data obtained from hardware. Certainly, if there is a prospect of providing profitable services with smart home appliances and residential equipment, some companies will be willing to connect for a fee. In August last year, Sekisui House started providing a smart home service "Platform How Statch" equipped with Panasonic's Aiseg2. The smartphone can operate the entrance, air conditioner, lighting, hot water, floor heating, and window shutters, and also notify heat stroke alerts and fire alarm sounds using temperature humidity sensors. In addition to the initial investment of the device, the use of these is charged for 2200 yen per month. Sales have not been disclosed in six months since it was released, but the story of "strong" has not been heard.

In the United States, most venture companies have succeeded in smart home services.Will major Japanese home appliance manufacturers create a smart home service that spreads widely to ordinary households, even if they aim for their heavy indirect costs?■ "Technically feasible situations" ... "Most of the services that are being provided at smart city and smart home are already technically feasible. The problem is used by consumers.It is not possible to realize a business model of "Kyosaka" to provide at the price you want to do. "According to Keisuke Murakami, the Digital Agency, the official of the National Service Group and the Digital Denento City State Concept.

Two years ago, Murakami was involved in the launch of the Japanese version of the smart city "Super City Concept", and has been working on the "data linkage base" to realize smart city."Smart Home" is an important item that makes up a smart city, and many services such as administration, education, medical care, transportation and logistics provided by smart city are used mainly in houses.After the war, Japan has achieved high economic growth, because the development of social infrastructure such as roads and railways, agricultural models that are shared by "self -help" by private businesses in agriculture, energy, and manufacturing industries.Because I did it.

However, in the digital society, it is necessary to establish and expand the business model of "mutual assistance (as a Japanese version of ecosystem)" in which private companies cooperate and share costs and profits.He emphasizes.If it cannot be achieved, there are concerns that huge IT companies such as GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook = Current Meta, Amazon, Microsoft) will be dominated by the market.The Digi Agency is preparing to develop and provide a “data linkage base” to realize smart city.This base will be used for smart home service cooperation, leading to transformation of local and small and medium -sized living and industry in the Digital Denenten City State Concept.

The device is in the jurisdiction of the Smart Life Team of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Information Economy Division, and one of them is Norimei Izumi, director of the architecture strategy planning room.He was originally a researcher at the Institute of Industrial Technology (Institute of Engineering), which has a PhD (engineering), and moved to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2017 to make an IT strategy."By realizing a smart home, it is possible to build a new coordination and ecosystem of products and services by structuring and analyzing information on the demand of consumers, consumer goods and housing maintenance.There is an expectation that there is no "

Google, which has grown into a huge company by realizing "structuring information" in the Internet world, analyzes those information and conquered the distribution market with a recommendation (recommendation) function.They are trying to realize the initiatives conducted by the two companies in the smart home world.When building a smart home architecture (structural system), how will the "Data Cooperation Base" be established by the government, and how do you build a "mutual assistance" business model?■ Smart home launched by Mitsubishi Estate

"The reason why smart homes are not widespread in Japan is that users can use it and there is no service that can be hired and provided with confidence as a housing supply company."Mitsubishi Estate has developed its smart home service "HOMETACT" in November last year, and introduced the rental apartment "The Park Habio Azabu Juban" (106 houses).In the conventional smart home service, equipment linkage across manufacturers did not progress, and users had to use multiple apps separately.In addition, there are many cases where the installation and settings are left to users, and services such as call centers and emergency response are not substantial.As a result, it was difficult for a housing supply company to hire.

In Mitsubishi Estate, in order to overcome such a situation, we have introduced an API linkage technology of American venture companies YONOMI, developed an IoT collaboration base with the cooperation of many companies, such as Rinnai, smart locks, and LIVESMART, an infrared controller.We launched "HOMETACT" by packaging the installation and settings in cooperation with the BicCamera Group, and the call center function."I've been working with various smart home services so far, but I think the development stance of Mitsubishi Estate is different from other companies. Not only the benefits of our products are used, but also needed to develop new services.I was also attracted to responding to data provision, etc. (Rinnai Information System Director Hiroki Yamamoto)

Mitsubishi Estate has introduced the service from its own rental apartments, but plans to provide the service to other housing supply companies in the future."HOMETACT will build an ecosystem in cooperation with participating companies that are active in IoT cooperation" (Mitsubishi Estate's Housing Business Planning Division, Kyohiro Tachibana), and built a business model of "Kyosaka".In addition, it is a strategy to establish a smart home in the Japanese housing market, mainly apartments, while involving manufacturers and housing supply companies.

■ Various initiatives such as the connector Home Alliance, an organization established by Tokyu Group, Panasonic, Miwa Rock, etc. in 2017 to spread the “smart home” in a touchstone whether Japanese society can DX.It has been held.However, the fact is that "if you try to consider how to use data, the discussion will not move forward" (alliances participating in the Alliance).Can Japan's "Smart Home" build a business model of "mutual assistance" and make a leap?It will be a touchstone to see if Japanese society can do digital transformation (DX).

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Last update: 2/10 (Thursday) 14:01

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