How to Stay Relevant in a Competitive Smart Home or App Market

With trends and technology constantly changing, there’s more pressure than ever to keep up and stay relevant in the competitive smart home and app markets.

If you believe Moore’s Law, computer processing speed doubles every two years.

But even if that level of progress is slowing down, technology is still moving at a fast pace every year.

With so many products and apps in the marketplace, it’s important to stay up to date, both with trends and technology. But what can you and your company do to make sure your offering is still current?

Work Towards the Right Certification

Gaining OCF certification is a positive step forward for any technology company involved with smart home devices.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has evolved in an ad hoc fashion so far. But the Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) aims to unify IoT standards. That way, developers and product designers can create devices that work together out of the box. The OCF boasts members from companies like Microsoft and Intel.

By gaining OCF certification, you can get involved with this unification process while the technology is in its infancy. With greater connectivity, new users are more likely to bring the technology into their homes.

In January 2017, Tekoia’s SURE Universal Remote platform became one of the first client applications to achieve OCF certification. The app already allows users to manage multiple devices from a single interface. But certification will allow us to work with a wider range of companies.

Partner With Other Companies

As much as you might like to do everything yourself, sometimes you need to turn to expert help. The old saying, two heads are better than one, is definitely applicable to mobile technology.

Tekoia partnered with Wulian, China’s leading supplier of IoT devices, to create the IoT Cloud Home Security Solution. By pairing Tekoia’s SURE Universal Remote and cloud software with Wulian’s devices, users get the best of both worlds.

Partnering with other companies lets you focus on what you’re best at. You gain the benefit of the experience and the skills of your partners – just as they enjoy yours.

Keep Up With Marketplace Trends

Attending trade shows is an important part of keeping up to date. The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is the best place to find out about the newest innovations.

It’s hard to decide on the top trends with hundreds of thousands of products being presented, but trade shows are also a good place to find out about less hyped-up offerings, like the latest security solutions. The IoT has been criticized for its vulnerabilities, but CES 2017 proved that communication between devices is just as important as their sleek exterior.

If app development is your area, then the Mobile World Congress (MWC) is an absolute must. Tekoia attended this year’s show, which featured VR headsets, the brand-new Nokia 3310, and even 5G internet.

Staying ahead of technological developments is an easy way to keep up to date with marketplace trends.

Focus on Ways to Keep the Product or App Relevant

Social media should be a conversation, not a monologue. Engaging with customers, both new and existing, is a staple of any marketing strategy. It builds relationships that can be the difference between a customer buying one brand over another.

But social media also offers an alternative use that is essential if you want to keep your products and apps relevant.

Enter social listening.

You probably only monitor your social media notifications. While that means you can see what customers say about your products, you only hear direct mentions of your brand. Thirty percent of tweets about a brand don’t include the Twitter handle.

True social listening lets you listen to what customers are saying about your brand, your competitors, or even your general niche.

You can collect your social listening data and later analyze it for patterns. It’s a powerful way to ensure apps and products fit a customer’s needs. It’s also a way to develop new products or apps that don’t yet exist.

Whichever strategy you choose, just remember this. You need to keep one eye on the world around you, and one eye on making your product the best it can be.

Over to you – which strategies will you implement to keep your products ahead of the game?