Episode 163 | Smart Houses: Fad or Necessity? | Brett Savill, Quantify Technology

20 years of house automation, what progress has been made and will owners want to retrofit their properties?
The future is now? Speak to your house, have an AI butler and automate your life… maybe not now but when? In this episode we chat to Brett Savill, CEO of Quantify Technology, an ASX-listed technology business dedicated to simplify living environments with ‘smart housing’. Our hosts and Brett discuss the current state of smart houses, the future of housing across the globe and how technology companies like Quantify Technology play into this.
Here’s what we covered:

• Why has it taken so long for smart houses to get where it is now?

• Out of all of the products which are best suited for home automation?

• What should a homeowner expect to pay for a smart house?

• Does fitting a house with smart technology increase its value?

• What are the benefits of fitting a house with smart technology

• How do big international players like Google and Amazon fit in this picture?

• Cyber-security is a major issue, how will your data be used?

• How should homeowners think about data communication?

• Is it expensive to set up and install?

RELEVANT EPISODES:
Episode 161 | Q&A
Episode 156 | Sentiments on the decade ahead
Episode 148 | Urban Design: What will future Australia look like?

GUEST LINKS:
https://www.quantifytechnology.com/directors/brett-savill/
http://linkedin.com/in/brettsavill 
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HOST LINKS:

Looking for a Sydney Buyers Agent? www.gooddeeds.com.au
Work with Veronica: https://linktr.ee/veronicamorgan

Looking for a Mortgage Broker? www.wealthful.com.au
Work with Chris: hello@wealthful.com.au

Send in your questions to: questions@theelephantintheroom.com.au

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Please note that this has been transcribed by half-human-half-robot, so brace yourself for typos and the odd bit of weirdness…
This episode was recorded in February 2021

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Please note that this has been transcribed by half-human-half-robot, so brace yourself for typos and the odd bit of weirdness…
This episode was recorded in February 2021.

Veronica Morgan: We live in a constantly changing world that seems to be speeding up. Innovation makes something simpler and others more complicated. And when it comes to the intersection of technology and our homes, how can we tell the difference between the latest fad gadget and an asset worth investing in.

Veronica Morgan: Welcome to the elephant in the room. This is the podcast where we love to talk about the big things in property that never usually get talked about. I'm Veronica Morgan, real estate agent buyer's agent co-host of Foxtel's location, location, location, Australia, and author of auction ready.

Chris Bates: And I'm Chris Bates mortgage broker. Before we get started, I need to let you know that nothing we say on here can be taken as personal advice. We always recommend you engage the services of a professional.

Veronica Morgan: Don't forget that you can access the transcript for this episode on the website, as well as download our free, full or forecast report, which experts can you trust to get it right? The elephant in the room.com did I, you this week, we're talking about smart homes. Are we really moving into the age of the Jetsons and that's apologies to anyone under the age of 40 with that reference, or are we getting sucked in by the Googles and the Amazons of this world by paying them to use our data in return for having the latest gizmo and with us today to put forward the case for smart homes is Brett Savall, CEO of quantified technology and ISX listed smart home automation, business, offering solutions and products to simplify our lived environment, improve safety and reduce power. Now put like that. It sounds very enticing. So thank you for joining us today, Brett.

Brett Savill: Thanks very much, Veronica. I'm really delighted to be, to be talking to you and your listeners.

Chris Bates: It's Breton. I mean, smart homes have been in lots of movies right back to the future. I mean, Casbah, I mean, there's lots of the claps when you turn off the lights, but you know, they've been around for years, the idea of having this sort of smart home, but why are they taking just so long to really take off and are they really taking off now or are we still at the start of the curve?

Brett Savill: Look Chris, that's a really good question. So you're right. Smart home automation has been around for at least 20 years. And if you look at some Saifai from the fifties and sixties, it's been for, for a lot longer in the past, it's really been far too expensive and too complex to achieve mass market. The first problem, I think, is the old Seabass systems that were used in the nineties and the early two thousands really involve wiring up your house with Capco,

Veronica Morgan: Mark, sorry to interrupt there. But I remember, you know, selling houses we see by us. And it was like these, you know, very, very proud owners that are spent between say 20 and $50,000 extra to why their home up and they open this room. We could almost talk a room if wiring is like the old fashioned computer, you know, and it's like, Jesus, what if something goes wrong? Like who's going to fix it. How do you even know?

Brett Savill: Yeah. And the answer is very simple to that is that we, they custom automation system came a custom automation, installer expert installer capture data obviously wanted to charge you per visit to fix. And so you were effectively completely addicted to the system and the the particular company that you chose to install it. And that's obviously a very analog, it's a very old fashioned way of thinking about any sort of technology. So I think what we're going through now is what you might call the iPhone moment for smart home automation. So if you remember the iPhone in 2007, the first thing that Steve jobs did, which was brilliant was that there were no instruction manual in that iPhone. And that was an absolute relevant revelation because we were used to some sort of cardboard pullout font for multiple of languages. You know, you couldn't even tell which which way it was meant to be off.

Brett Savill: So he made the product simple enough for you not to need instructions. And the second thing that he did was he threw open the platform to his competitors that we now call the app store. And that was quite a remarkable thing to do at the time. And certainly a lot of people said, that's the wrong strategy, but it proved to be right. So we're at that cusp, that inflection point with smart-home automation and it's being driven by simplification. So the devices really are simple to install and easy to use, and they work with each other rather than relying on completely self-contained systems that don't work with anybody else. As you mentioned you know, that they are popular already. So there's something like 60, 60 odd percent, all Australian households have at least one smart product. And they have an average of 20 connected devices in their home. And that number is due to double over the next three or four years.

Veronica Morgan: People using them properly.

Brett Savill: Look, that's a really good question. Veronica, and one of the things that we still get is people, particularly in the case of a Google home or the Amazon, Amazon, Alexa, they buy it, they stick it up, switch it on and then say, Google, can you turn off the lights please? And then they ring up their electrician, but it hasn't been connected. So the answer is they're not using them correctly yet. And as, as is always the case with the adoption of technology, you need to have something simple that so that people can use it without much training and you need to have a product that works with enough other devices for you really to get a benefit from it. And it was very much the same with the iPhone. The iPhone started off as being a bit of a specialist niche product. And then we soon realized that actually our next phone, we didn't want the next phone to have multiple switches along the side. We have an instruction menu and we want it to have some sort of app store that would mean that we could put different different software platforms on top. So it's, it's coming. Veronica is the answer and it's, it's picking up very quickly.

Chris Bates: We have an older home and you're wanting to sort of attack sort of smart home as a journey. What would be sort of the process you would go through and things potentially you wouldn't do because it just doesn't make sense yet, but it may do in the future.

Brett Savill: I think the first thing is to start with start with lighting and start with control of power. So if you're not doing that, you're really not getting a decent experience. And the danger I think is that if you just install a single smart gadget, you're not really going to see the full benefits of automation. So say, is speak to your electrician, choose a, a reputable product and stall some sort of lighting control, probably half a dozen to a dozen devices is not going to cost you a great deal. Do you research on the products? There's a lot of products out there and if you do a Google search, you know, you'll find at least at least a hundred companies in this space. What I'd say is look at the products that are recommended by your electrician. Look at the products that have got good reviews and don't go just on price because the cost is coming down so much. Now that it's affordable really for most households.

Veronica Morgan: So this is obviously always the way with new technology. Isn't it? That the early adopters pay a fortune and then everyone else gets the economies of scale, but you still, there's a level of hard wiring, obviously that still needs to happen by the sounds of it. You've still got to get electrician in to actually install the right product or the right hardware. What's the other than clapping and turn your lights off or just walking out the door. I mean, you know, cause there's no real estate agents trick by the way. And that is, you can actually just go out there and turn the fuse box, you know, sweet fleet, quants switch in the fuse box and then the whole house lights up and then you leave and you do, and you flip it the other way. What's the difference? I mean, what's the real value in automating something like lighting.

Brett Savill: So the first point to make is that you just, as you said yet, under Australian law, an electrician does need to install a light. So whether it's a connected plug or a non-connected part, yes, you do need an electrician to do that. So there is some installation costs in terms of the benefits, I'd say probably four benefits Veronica. The first one is, you know, you talked about the Jetson experience. You can personalize your home in a way that you can't do without connected products. You can have a welcome home scene so that when you come home, the alarm is switched off. The whole lighting is switched on the blinds, go up to 50% of your favorite music plays. And you can have a goodbye scene where all of your standby power is, is switched off. So that personalization is something other people are drawn to him today.

Brett Savill: Most people buy connected products for that star Trek, that that Jetson type experience. The second thing that it will do is provide you with improved safety. So you can buy I security camera system for a fraction of the cost of the old back to base alarms that used to be installed. You can get a garage door controller, which will tell you in, you know, when you're away from home, if your garage door is opened similarly with a garage door controller, if you want to have a third party logistics company deliver your high value parcel, it can be put under the garage door rather than leaving an out of the front door, if that's what you want. And the third thing that it does is reduce your energy costs. So if you know what each device is consuming, it allows you to control the power consumption of that device from the very simplest things such as not having the pool on when when it's a high tariff to reducing your lighting from maybe a hundred percent down to 75% of not even being able to notice it, each of those changes is very small in themselves, but add them together and you get this compounding effect, which makes a big difference to your lift and experience and given your customers in particular Veronica, the final thing I'd say is that it adds value to a home in the U S that decent part, smart home automation system will add 50 grand to the value of a four-bedroom house.

Brett Savill: We don't have the information about the Australian market because it's not yet mature enough, but there's no doubt that every builder that I deal with is looking at smart home automation today. And if the new builds are all going to have it, the retrofit will follow in due course.

Veronica Morgan: It's sort of interesting, isn't it? Because we we recently did a Q and a episode, and one of the questions was asked of us, which you know, in terms of sustainable features in, in new builds or in, in homes, you know, is there any data around that shows that consumers will actually pay more for property because it has those features and, and there isn't yet, and it's still a very niche market where you've got people that will pay for more for it. Unfortunately, nice to be mainstream this. I wonder if this, because this is sort of sexier and more and more bells and whistles on it. And I guess in some ways aligned to sustainability, if it does help reduce your energy costs, but you know, ease is, is that sort of, do you think that this has probably got more potential to actually add value in a quantifiable way? Because you know, like you say, in the U S you can quantify it here, you can't do you think has got more potential because it's sexier? Yes, I that's. Right. And it's,

Brett Savill: It's, I would say it's a little bit because it's sexier, but as you said earlier, it's much more to do with the fact that it's sustainable. So with the old systems that we were talking about, they are very clunky and clumsy to evolve. Whereas day the systems have reasonably dumb, sustainable hardware controlled by very powerful software and AI. And without needing to come back to your home every year to make tweaks, the software is improving all the time. So I don't know if you have a Google home or an Amazon Alexa, but over the last two years, you can see that those products have evolved dramatically. The speech shouldn't is better. The personalization is better. So for example, Google started to say it's a, it's a PowerPoint. Whereas the American term was an outlet. So they personalize it to the local markets and it's starting to recognize patterns. So they'll say, Veronica, I see you normally lock your door at night at nine o'clock. You've not done it tonight. Would you like me to do that?

Chris Bates: Yeah. So they've got this, I mean, you've got this sort of controller, then you install your lights. Maybe you put a, you know, a wifi sort of security system in place that can encourage the door, your doorbell. But what are some of the other things that people probably aren't thinking about with smart homes that you know, are really a key part of smart homes?

Brett Savill: I think really thinking about control of the devices that consume the most power in your home. So you're not going to make a significant difference to power consumption if all you're doing is controlling lighting. But if we think about air conditioning, hot water and, and your pool, those are the, those are the devices. Obviously, if you've got a pool, those are the devices that will really make a difference to your total energy.

Chris Bates: Yeah. So the air con a lot of those have their own sort of controller down there. I'm doing one at the moment. And it feels like you're getting a controller for that. And then I've got, so home kid or Google home or Alexa, and you're getting these competition of devices. Is it, do you think that ultimately we're all gonna just have one device, which is one of the big companies, or do you think that there's going to be six controls around the house?

Brett Savill: No, you can't have sex. And it's, you're absolutely right Chris, about the apps. You know, if you look at your phone, most of the research shows that 75%, you'd never go beyond apps on the second page. We don't want our life to be too complex. We want things to work together. Google, Amazon, and Apple have a very similar vision, which is that they want to use their software and AI to link with every device in your home and to control it. And for them, it is a, a race just like the race for smartphones is effective at the smartphones of the 2020s. And if you're a major manufacturer, now you have a decision to make, which is either to throw control, open to these platforms or to try and muscle out yourself. And I think for the vast majority of manufacturers, they're simply not going to be big enough to compete with the likes of those three tech. John's so much better to work with them than to fight them

Veronica Morgan: Big, deep issue for me. I don't have Google home. I don't have Alexa. I don't have, I don't even use Siri on my phone. Not that it's probably not listening to me. And I'm a slight Brucey theorist on all this, you know, and, and I really resent the idea that, you know, Google and Amazon, et cetera making us pay for them to capture our data. So there's, there's some issues here that obviously there's privacy, there's, you know, you know, learning to value our own data. There's, you know, it's been big in the news recently with Facebook, et cetera, et cetera. But, so there's lots of issues where I am beyond the smart home and probably probably beyond the remit of the sexual podcast, but it's what is of interest to me, like for instance, air conditioners have had, have you been able to preset times on them for years, but I've never ever pre set a timer on my air conditioner and I'm probably headache. And you think for probably nearly 20 years and I guess you could argue the smart home, you know, simplifies all of that. So therefore you would use it, or you could also argue that no, you're not going to, I'm only going to use it toward a dominoes, you know? So I wonder, you know, how much of it is around, excuse me, I need to have a glass of water.

Veronica Morgan: Right. I think I'll go. I think I'm good. I wonder, I wonder how much of it still relies on the tech savviness of the home owner versus just being sold up a bunch of features that you'll never use and how much of it really is about, you know, redefining or making it actually simpler. So you do use those features and, you know, I'm presuming that's something that you've, you've done a lot of research on there. Brett,

Brett Savill: Look at you. There's a couple of points there, so let's just deal with the simplicity first. So do you remember when antilock brakes collision avoidance even airbags came, came into cars and they were always the petrol heads who said, you know, I don't, I don't want Andy knocking bikes. It will, it will spoil my driving experience. I have to have it. I want to be able to have some sort of overlay override so that I can start to improve my safety 20 years down the track, 25 years down the track. No one's doing that now. And indeed you wouldn't, you wouldn't buy a car without those features, unless it was a very obscure you know, classic car from the sixties or seventies.

Brett Savill: So in order to be truly mass market, a lot of these things will have to be invisible to you otherwise, simply won't be used. And that means that you've got to have the confidence that these companies aren't going to do anything that you don't want with your data. So I think you're right. The simplicity comes with making decisions for you. And those decisions will be little micro decisions. And that's what I mean about the compounding effect of emotional gains. It's a 1% here. It's a 1% there, but if at the end of the year, that's compounded to a 10% improvement in your energy bill. Then that's, that's been worthwhile, I think, to deal with your second issue or around the security. This is a major concern. And every time I talk about this, I often find that up to half of the questions can be about security.

Brett Savill: The first point about the those big tech giants is that most people have a lot of sensitive data on their phone. They've got their search history they've got their banking details, they've got all their emails. So there's a lot more sensitive data on, on your on your phone than there is on the device, which is basically power consumption pretty much. And you know, even, even with something that sounds very risky, like a connected lock for your front door, and the reality is for a burglar, it's pretty hard to get into somebody's lock and hack the lock system of a major lock manufacturer, much better simply to break the window and then open it. But there is a, there is a, there is a much deeper answer, which is which is really around the confidence that people across in particular, the first world have in these tech giants. And I think there is an education process that they need to go through with all of us to, to convince us that our, our information is not being used for nefarious purposes. And it, you know, it's fair to say that there's, there's an increasing skepticism around that at the moment. And so there's, there's work to do for all three of them.

Veronica Morgan: And it is true that we all we've handed over our privacy long ago. I I'm thinking too, you know, I look at cars for instance, and I don't sort of worry, you know, in the olden days, you'd, you'd worry about your car being broken into, so you go and get an alarm put in and then, you know, then you buy a car when the alarm, and then it, then it had this sort of security built into the actual hardware or software or the actual car. And these days, I don't even think about my car getting stolen. You know, I just figured anyone who's going to be able to hack that good luck to them, you know, just, and and I guess though, you know, like you say, when you've got integrated locks or locks that are controlled via a computer, then, you know, that does open up for hacking and, and a different type of theft, you know?

Veronica Morgan: And I guess that's something that we, you know, we all feel a lot safe if we have our key and we use our kit and I've got bars and an alarm and all that sort of stuff, and you feel quite safe, but then when you've got, I can remote control over my garage door and allow access to the house for someone who's going to deliver a parcel, which is great in one level of security. And then on the other side of it, you think, Oh God how is that protected? You know, and we talk, we hear things about encryption is not foolproof. And so you know, how, how, I guess, what are developments in that area? What are the assurances for people who want to completely automate their home?

Brett Savill: All all the best manufacturers will have layers of security at the hardware layer. You will have a device that if you make an exact copy of it, won't be recognized by the system because it's got some sort of a unique number then communication between the device and the cloud will be encrypted which makes it difficult to hack into and, and to interrupt my students. And then at the layer of the cloud, you have some of the most sophisticated providers like Amazon web services or Google cloud, really focusing on making it difficult to hack. Now, none of those is completely impenetrable, but if you add layer upon layer, then you're most likely to be secure.

Veronica Morgan: If you like, what you're hearing here, please share this episode with others, you feel would benefit. And while you're at it, why not leave us an iTunes review, five stars, please, every review helps make it easier for other people to find us and hear what our amazing guests have to say. We love hearing your questions and we're planning more listener Q and a episodes. Please send your questions in. You can send them via the website, which is the elephant in the room.com today. You, or directly via email to questions@theelephantintheroom.com. Did I, you so assuming that, you know, we're, we're all fine with our data being secure, a home, being secure that the benefits outweigh the costs and all the rest of it. And we've got a couple of other questions. One is specifically around, you know, the, the ability for technology to be superseded and for us to invest in, you know, hardware, because there's still some hardware that has to be invested in, so that we'll talk to the system or to the app. Right. what's the risk of that being superseded? I mean, the poor people with $50,000 with a C bass wiring, I mean, you know, it's really just gathering dust probably switched off, you know?

Brett Savill: Yeah. It's a really good point. And the what's happened is that a lot of the smart is in the cloud now, which just means that you don't need to replace the hardware. So often in terms of the hardware, one of the big risks you face is with the way the hardware communicates with the software. So you've got one there's, whereas wifi standards, we've gone two G 3g, 4g and then you probably will have heard of these strange other protocols, such as Z-Wave or ZigBee, Bluetooth, and so forth. And it is a complex smorgasbord of different things. What is happening is that we are moving from what telco experts call a modernist network to a heterogeneous network. And what that means is that the device chooses the best protocol. And so immediately that risk of whatever communication standard you, you use changing has been diminished.

Brett Savill: The devices that our company use will be Bluetooth and there'll be wifi, and they have they have strengths and weaknesses of each protocol. Bluetooth has the advantage in that it meshes together to add strength to all of the devices in the home. Wifi is, is clearly ubiquitous and is supported by every manufacturer in the world. And what we're going to see with the next generation is that actually the chip itself will have multiple communication protocols. So again, that, what that does is that it just means that the cost of redundancy is the likelihood of redundancy is reduced. And then the final point to make is that hardware, every year hardware gets cheaper. And so even if it does become outdated or outmoded, you know, it's a very different proposition if to put smart home, automation has cost you a couple of grand than if it's cost you 20 or 30 grand.

Veronica Morgan: And then you're back to sustainability and waste. You know, SANOS had a bit of a backflush a little while back because, you know, they have generation one stuff they just sent out saying, well, that's it too, so sad, too bad, or you loyal customers you've helped us becomes as successful as we are. We're not going to support your first-generation hardware anymore. And I, one of those customers and I've resisted upgrading because I just think E sucky people, you know, that's thing, not very nice way to treat your customers, you know 

Chris Bates: I think a lot with this technology, isn't it? You, do you really approach a TV issue or wait next year, or you can get a much better TV for the same price, or you can get the same TV a much cheaper, and I guess, you know, do you buy a Tesla power wall when it's 10 grand? Or do you wait till they're $2,000 in two or three years time? Like, you know, are we at that point yet, Brett, with a lot of the smart home, or should we just really sit on our hands a couple of years and, you know, wait for, you know, the better technology and chief art to sort of start to really flood the market and then you can actually get something that's a good value, I guess.

Brett Savill: No, I think the time, the time is now, I think you know, if you look at a Google home, the, the, the cheapest smart speaker in the market is less than $50. So, you know, it's not going to go down much from there. And increasingly most of the manufacturers and OEMs are working with Google, Amazon, and, and that whole, which means that you will have control of multiple devices through it, through a single app and through talk. So what people want today is they want this touch tap talk. They want to be able to talk to a device. They want to be able to control it remotely, and they want to be able to have a device act like a device. And I think the cost has come down now where it's worthwhile looking at investing in a, in a sensible manner in getting, getting these improvements. What I would say is that, you know, this comes back to that discussion that we had earlier, the, you, it does add value to the home and I can't quantify it for the Australian market, but what I can tell you is all of the builders that we're talking to are all looking at some type of smart home automation to put into the new build homes in order to be able to today differentiate them. But in three to five years time simply to sell them.

Veronica Morgan: Well, we sort of were looking at solar panels as well. Now, if, okay, so in the U S you say he's quantifiable, tell us how that's been quantified.

Brett Savill: Well, this comes from Amazon research with the builders that they work with. And what they've done is that they've put systems in and responded. The builders have responded that they would reckon that a fully functioning automation system will add up to 50 grand to the value of a home. They're talking about a four-bedroom home. So, you know, it's not 50 grand to 300 grand apartment, but it's it's to a four bedroom home. So what the builders and developers are saying is that it will add to the value, or it means that the property will turn over quicker. So they'll sell it quick to discount it.

Chris Bates: So, so going forward though, like we've got the lights, you know, all the things, is there any sort of technology that people, you know, you must be watching the new trains and what's coming and things that are actually going to really change our life. Is there any sort of technology you think that we aren't using in our home today that maybe we'll be using in three, four years time? You know, like a dishwasher, I guess where there's going to be this sort of light bulb moment where this new piece of technology comes in and really revolutionizes our home.

Brett Savill: One S immediate answer is home security. So that's taken off very quickly, but the penetration in Australia is still very, very low and for an affordable price, you know, in the numbers that I'm talking to the ability to be able to remotely view what's going on to have alarms be set off so that, you know, if something's going on to have the potential to go either back to base or, or, or to the police station, those are very cost-effective

Brett Savill: Um I would say that the one device that hasn't really taken off is the, the Dyson, the vacuum cleaner, whatever it's called. And so we've got those robot vacuum cleaners, but they're not ubiquitous. They can't climb upstairs. So I think that would be one area where, where we'll see a lot of innovation over the next three years,

Veronica Morgan: But the house it cleans itself at work

Brett Savill: Exactly. How cool would that be? Exactly right.

Veronica Morgan: Could save yeah. A hundred bucks a week, you know, for the cleaner. So anything else, anything sort of more whizzbang than that? Anything that sort of goes through walls?

Brett Savill: No, not really. No, no, no, I don't think so. You, you mentioned solar w w as, as you know, one of the issues with, with power in Australia is there isn't really a coherent national strategy on what we're doing. And it's very difficult for the solar companies and the battery companies to scale up because each state has subsidies. Sometimes they're even at a lower level, the level of the state there isn't a national approach. Electric car penetration is as been woeful in, in Australia. And there's been far less government intervention in that. What is going to happen is that Australia will, at some point, we'll have to catch up with the rest of the world and the issue for a home as if it has an electric car, it will use 25% more power, some really important then to have a battery and solar and solar, having that working in with the, everything beyond the meter, all your devices is, is the best way to optimize your power bill. So you potentially

Chris Bates: Have to 50% more power if you've got, say

Brett Savill: 20, 25%. Oh, two cars. Yeah.

Chris Bates: Yeah. Which is a huge sort of white load on the current system, single three, and

Brett Savill: Exactly right. It's an it's a, it's a nightmare for, for the utility companies. And you know, what they're crying out for is to have some sort of national strategy to be able to coordinate this, because we all know that electric cars are coming and will represent a meaningful proportion of the total traffic over the next 10 years. And it's going to take 10 years as, as a country to get ready for that.

Veronica Morgan: But we've also got tyranny of distance that, you know, a lot of other countries don't have, which is one of the issues with electric cars. But I have, you know, I have heard of, you know, sort of like the house of the future is basically own little power station, you know, that the car becomes the battery for the house. So there's all sorts of weird.

Brett Savill: You're absolutely right. And, and of course, whilst there is the tyranny of distance in Australia, the big advantage we've got is, is the weather, which is, you know, we're in climate for solar power. The average house can generate a lot of power during the year. And in terms of, of driving really, most of us live in Metro areas. And most of us don't do all than 600 kilometers at one go so well, you'll be just be having your your Zen cost or your or your zoom meeting while you weren't necessarily to travel at all. You mentioned

Chris Bates: Water very early on, is that things that you can do up. So you're talking about power and electricity, et cetera, but, you know, that's probably another big resource that we do use for our houses. Is there ways to sort of not manage the actual, just the usage of water and to be smarter with all that

Brett Savill: I think it comes. The problem probably is and I've seen some initial experiments in this space not a great deal. I think in terms of the smart meter, there's a very high proportion of water is lost through leakages. And one of the things that the utilities water utilities want to do is to be able to pick up the X much quicker, which they can do through smart meters. I think in terms of your own home, your power bill in part is driven by the cost of heating your water. So if you standing of what that's costing you, and when it's being drawn down, then you can manage it better.

Chris Bates: You can hate the tank at certain times off pay for the stuff. If you've got a tank,

Brett Savill: That's very true. That is also true,

Veronica Morgan: Right? So I you're saying that smart home automation is here to stay. You're saying that the time is now to buy it because it's cheaper than it was you saying that, that we have, how many, what percentage of 30% of our appliances on average was that the figure that you gave

Brett Savill: The average time today as about has 19 connected devices and that'll double over the next three years, and in terms of smart speakers, there's one in every six or seven homes.

Veronica Morgan: When you say that they've got 19 connected devices, they're connectable devices or connected devices.

Brett Savill: So that's I'm using a broad definition here that could include laptops and PC. Right.

Veronica Morgan: Okay. So I suspect what you're suggesting there is that we already have a lot of the hardware is just that we're probably not joining the door.

Brett Savill: That's exactly right. Yep. Yep.

Veronica Morgan: I definitely have a lot of the hallway and I have not joined the dots in my house. Okay. Well, so this is, it's potentially the way of the future. It's potentially could add value to a home. I, I guess my personal cynicism is that that's going to take a while for that to translate into, you know, in terms of making an investment in your own home, it's you do it for your own comfort rather than you know, for adding value, because I just think that most people at this stage, I think it sort of fits in the bucket of sustainability. Unfortunately, they're just not prepared to pay more for it.

Chris Bates: I guess it's part of the selling though, isn't it, it's just, if you, for example, they're doing a renovating your home to sell and you can do things that don't cost a lot of money. I, a video doorbell, you know, security cameras yes, she created this sort of lighting. That's all smart home. It gives the agent sort of another sort of thing that may only be a few thousand dollars, but it just might be enough to sort of invoke the emotions a little bit more. Do you think Veronica and maybe create one more buyer with a little bit interested in, maybe he's a little bit tech savvy and gets excited by it. Do you think that those sort of small things could make a difference, hence why you get more competition, which tends to why you might get higher prices, do you think,

Veronica Morgan: Well, when you're selling a property, fundamentally you are looking at every additional buyer potential. It will potentially mean more money, you know, because it's all about competition and whether you're selling at a, at an asking price or whether you're actually going to auction that the principle is the same at an asking price, you're more likely to get your asking price, or even maybe more than your asking price, if you've got more than one person fighting over it. And so yes, if you happen to have that attraction for that tech savvy person or they're sustainable you know, the eco warrior, which I would love it if everyone wasn't eco war in particular, but we're not then yes, potentially that can work. But the problem is, I would say that, you know, until that's, that's a larger proportion of the buying public, then it's relying a bit on Lark rather than on good design.

Veronica Morgan: You know what I mean? And I do every now and then come across a house that's being listed and it's, or, or an apartment even that's really being pitched as having some, you know, extremely wonderful feature. That's all lovely, but it, you know, the feedback we get from agents a lot is very much, well, you know, the buyers love, it gives us something more to talk about, you know, I might keep them in the home a little bit more, maybe gets an extra buyer, but the end of the day, most people are like, yeah, nice to have. But if the rest of the house is not what I want, I'm not gonna, I'm not going to go hard on it. You know, there's, there's other things in the property. Yeah, exactly. And so that's just the icing on the cake.

Brett Savill: But I think that's right. And I think we hadn't really talked a lot about costs, but what I'm talking about is probably two to three grand in hardware, the old Seabass 20 to 50 grand investment. Yes. It's just someone at that

Chris Bates: Bret, like you don't know, there's YouTube channels and everything can have to the quick search, you know, smart home, there's hundreds of YouTube channels that people are spot I'm experts. Is there sort of people popping up though, you know, we will make your home smart. You pay us a sort of consultancy fee. We have agreements with all the manufacturers. So us and we'll do it all for you. 

Brett Savill: Yeah, I think, I think the, there are, but I think the challenge is that the integrators historically have come from those custom designed smart home automation, big Seabass bus type systems. So if they go to your home and say, well, you know, it's, you're not going to get any change out of 50 grand. So what we haven't yet seen, which is something that's very popular in the States is people that will give you a simple solution over the phone and then have a man in the end can deliver that to you, to your house. And that's, I think where we're, we're looking to head that wouldn't be our organization, but we're certainly talking to a number of organizations to see if they could play that role. And if you think about it, if you, you know, you mentioned earlier buying a TV if you buy a TV from one of the major manufacturers, the person that deliver it delivers it delivers, it will also install it and probably run a few checks as well, and explain how to, how to do that. And I think you're seeing in the States now we need to see more of that here in Australia. So

Chris Bates: We've got a property Dumbo for us, Brit

Brett Savill: I haven't ate, I haven't. So most people I think on the call will have heard of smart light bulbs and beginning your journey into smart home automation. It sounds like a very good way to go buy a bowl will only cost you 20 or $30. You install it and Hey, Presto, it works. And we do find a number of people that we speak to have gone down this route of buying a smart bulb as part of the journey. Now, there is one slight problem with a smart light bulb. And that is if the switch at the wall is off, you can do whatever you want on the app, but the light. So what you then do, we go into homes and we see lots of sticky tape all over the light switches, just switching it on. So smart light bulbs have their place, but if you are, if you are interested in in smart home automation, start with the things that control the power control, the lights control the demos, the air conditioning, the blinds, the garage door controller start with those devices, put a few grand aside for your experimentation, get enough devices in so that you can actually have seen control that you can actually have the benefits rather than just a single item.

Brett Savill: So that would be my, my Dumbo. Please don't think that that's going

Brett Savill: To really help you make a decision about smart home automation, because it, it has a number of limitations. That means it risks being a very unsatisfactory experience

Veronica Morgan: Classic. So Jenny control your home from you from your iPhone.

Brett Savill: Yes. Yeah. So the way it will work or the way it does work with our products from most of the competitors is that they will be an app and you can download, download our app, or increasingly you can use the Google app or the Amazon app or the Apple app to control your home.

Chris Bates: Yeah. I mean, Apple, I've got home kit, isn't it or just home. I think it might be. Yeah. And so ideally what you're doing is you're adding devices to home kit. Whether it's your your doorbell or your lights or your blinds or your solar or your air con, we should, I think these companies have all sort of, you know, all your sound or H you know, just as adding assessors and then you set limits and times and things like that. But I think isn't it.

Brett Savill: Yes. And then you group them together and you once you group together, you can then operate scenes. You can then have, you know, let let's say when you're on holiday you have a holiday mode, which means that the lights go on at a certain time and it appears that somebody is in your house. So, you know, there's, there's a lot of things that you can do with it.

Veronica Morgan: And so it reminds me, you know, your, your parents put the radio on and the light on, and of course it's still on at 3:00 AM when you're on holidays. So the Rob is looking go, Oh, those lights on for 24 hours a day, they must be on holidays. Solves that problem.

Chris Bates: The lines with that sustainable thing you spoke about Veronica is I don't think maybe today, it's not quantifiable, but isn't that big of an investment. And if that helps you potentially sell your home on and why you're living in it potentially have a better experience. It's something to start to consider because more and more products are sort of coming out and the technology is getting better and it's not just sort of clapping for the lights.

Brett Savill: Exactly. Right. I think I would say something like, look, your, your phone's smart. Your car is smart. So your home should be as

Veronica Morgan: Thank you so much for coming along, Brett. We will pop a link in the show notes for you know, I guess your business. So if anyone's interested in looking into it further, then they can use that as a starting point. And we appreciate you coming along and, and telling us a bit about this. We keep hearing about smart homes. We feel like we're missing out on something. And so if that certainly is you, there's a, I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Thanks for us, really appreciate it.

Chris Bates: Very good. Thanks, Brett. We want to make you a better elephant rider and this week's elephant rider training is,

Veronica Morgan: Oh, just a little bit of an extension on what we started talking about with Brett there, we started talking about, you know, is making your house a smart home, you know, something good for, so, yes, I think it was, it was a grade. If you're going to find it a way to make your home more comfortable and also do save energy, I think there's a real good case for it making your home a smart home and you enjoy it while you're living there. But to do it purely to add a selling point, I would think is probably not necessarily a great investment, but, you know, there are lots of things that you do need to do to your property if you are planning to sell. And that is, you know, fundamentally to make it more appealing. And, and I think that one of the things I used to always say to potential vendors and buyers for that matter when I was a sales agent, was that no one ever leaves in their house the way they do when they're selling it.

Veronica Morgan: And that means all the typical decluttering that painting the full on clean all the windows, sparkling, you know, garden looking trimmed and low maintenance and watered, and you know, all the things that you need to do, you actually need a fresh set of eyes in many cases, cause all the things that your eyes gloss over, you know, that you're so used to seeing those are the things that really stick out like sore thumbs when you're selling. And I remember when I was selling my house a number of years back and the front wall or the side wall. So it's right on the outside, it's on the street, it's fairly low wall for that matter. It just had a few cracks in the render and to be quite Frank, everything was immaculate on the inside of the house that the house is beautiful and the garden was beautiful and et cetera, et cetera.

Veronica Morgan: But he actually came to me and said, look, before we had the first open, I really want you to fix that render. I looked at him like, he's got three heads. You're getting me. And it's like attention to detail, every little thing you don't want to jar anybody. You don't want to have anyone thinking, Oh my God, this is, this is going to be maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. So these are sort of on the flip side of the Caesar tips for buyers to walk in and to get this thing is, [inaudible] just remember it requires a lot of money and time and effort and energy to actually keep in that condition homes don't stay like that. So I think, you know, they're the things that make a difference. You want to take away any friction, you know, when, when you're selling your home, you want to make it, the buyers just walk in, imagine this dream life in that room and take away the friction. So, and sometimes when, you know, adding whizzbang technology actually adds friction because the agent then is trying to sell it and that makes it, you know, sometimes it actually makes it harder to sell, to be honest.

Chris Bates: I mean, I love those two points. I think the definitely getting it obviously ready for Sal, but if you have Boeing, just remember you are behind something that is never going to look as good as when you first say to the open. And there's a lot of work to sort of maintain. I just laugh. Cause I'm doing that at the moment we bought our house. We didn't even notice there was Fleiss wasn't foster cranes on the place. Like we would have crossed, but if, if we go there to buy it so fast, it was pre-market, but there's no way this place would have got away with doing opens. We've no fly screens. You know, and it's just, I just think it's you know, you've got to, if you're thinking about doing an upgrade, we get lots of clients at this stage.

Chris Bates: And it's a really tricky conversation because some people who've got the ability to upgrade without selling. You know, they can buy first. But if a lot of people can't and they need to sell first. And so if you thinking about doing, just start to do the work and start getting it ready for Sal, because, you know, by the time you actually got all itself, you could be months before you get it up to, to saleable and you could miss the seasons. And so yeah, just really stay on top of these things if you're thinking about doing an upgrade because it's not, you don't want to have that oldest stress of tidying the place up plus trying to sell plus trying to buy it's exhausting. There's only so much we can do so stay on top of it if you're thinking about upgrading

Veronica Morgan: So true. And if I don't encourage her stay on top of it anyway, I mean, it's sort of, I'm pretty fortunate. Like my partner is very facetious and you know, it's, it's hilarious. She's even got me outside getting rid of cobwebs. I minute we see them now, you know what I mean? Right on top of it. And, and, and it does it, it requires you know, and I look at houses about 20 years where the cop loops in the, you know, and it's when you have a house and this is one of the things that people, when they're buying like an apartment and they, they, they sort of gripe about straddle. If he's gone, I don't want to pay strata levies. In reality, if you're buying into a good building, all this stuff is done by somebody else in your place for it to be done.

Veronica Morgan: And this is, this is the thing that people often forget when they're buying a house is the level of maintenance keeping on top of it. Keeping windows painted, keeping, you know, is, is keeping things protected. I interviewed a on the, your first home buyer guide podcast interviewed a, an old building inspector a couple of weeks ago. And this is an inspector that I used to get when I first became a buyer's agent to actually do the inspections properties for our clients. And he said, it was just one thing. And I was like, yes. So true. He said, the minute a building is built, it starts deteriorating. So you got to keep on top of it.

Chris Bates: Yeah. But you don't want to be that person keeping on top of that. You know, I guess raking the leaves before they're fallen. Yeah.

Veronica Morgan: Yeah. That's like my partner, I love it. She's got a leaf blower. It's fantastic. The nights she goes, then it keeps it looking beautiful.

Chris Bates: So I just thought that'd be kind of obsessive and spend more time out of the house in it.