From cassettes to CDs, DVDs and now live music streaming. From floppy disks to CDs, USBs and now cloud drives. From landlines to cordless phones, mobile phones and now smartphones. If the first three lines made you nostalgic, congratulations! You, like me, have witnessed this technological revolution first hand and have fond memories associated with all these products. At the same time, we also have a better appreciation for today’s technology, as our definition of fast and convenient has evolved over time, whether it’s internet speed (dial-up from phone lines, remember?) or shopping of groceries (10 minutes! I mean? it’s amazing) or internet availability (Internet cafes were a thing once).
Gen Z, unlike my generation (I feel older now), grew up during the best phase of this technological revolution, and with a different definition of fast and convenient. So the challenge is for technological advances to keep up with them, to keep them excited and amazed. As “quick and convenient” is very important to this new generation, they prefer online shopping, online food delivery, online taxi booking, online grocery delivery, online dating, etc. Basically, they love to save time and effort on rudimentary transactional tasks and improve their quality of life by spending time on things they enjoy doing or simply relaxing.
The smart home is a perfect match for this generation, allowing them to control their electrical appliances through their smartphones or voice commands. AC, TV, lights, fans, heaters, electricity meters, robotic vacuums, door lock, doorbell, security camera, air purifier and what not! Now they can monitor everything while lying in bed, gossiping in the office or while on an international vacation. Smart home automation offers them the perfect combination of comfort, convenience and speed and thus has successfully grabbed their attention.
Now comes the best part. In addition to being a perfect product market for Gen Z, the smart home is also cheap now, with most devices costing them less than 10% of what their smartphones would cost. This low cost helps influence trials, and when they experience a product, it’s only natural to be drawn to the whole range. Since this generation is still in its early stages of career, some might be prioritizing the expensive product range (costing more than INR 25,000), but they already have the budget product range (smart bulbs and plugs like minimum).
This is going to be a very interesting journey with smart homes where Gen Z will not only be on the receiving end of product usage, but will play a huge role in that change by setting new benchmarks and higher standards for companies.
Exemption from liability
The opinions expressed above are the author’s own.
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