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| ICT Minister Lee Jong-ho announces a plan to develop the country's smart home industry during an emergency meeting of economy-related ministers at the Government Complex in Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap |
By Baek Byung-yeul
The government will launch a smart home alliance with leading IT and construction companies, including Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Hyundai E&C and Korea Land & Housing Corp. (LH), by the end of the year, according to the ICT minister.
"The smart home market is changing rapidly. Global companies are already leading standardization and focusing on service differentiation, so it is urgent to take advantage of the global market transition period to create new markets," ICT Minister Lee Jong-ho said during an emergency meeting of economy-related ministers in Seoul.
He added the government will cooperate with local companies to "discover leading intelligent home business models and services that apply global standards and support the development of the aftermarket to enable the use of smart homes."
The industry view is the future smart home will be more advanced than existing services that use wall pads or AI speakers to operate at-home devices, instead letting users control home appliances, lighting systems and doors made by various manufacturers through a single global standard system and customized services based on artificial intelligence technology.
The Korean market has been impeded because of construction and IT companies adopting different standards, making it difficult for devices to connect freely.
However, as global Big Tech companies agreed in 2022 to launch Matter, a unified internet of things (IoT) protocol, the size of this market is expected to grow in the future.
The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), a global standards organization led by global Big Tech companies such as Samsung, LG, Google, Amazon and Apple, announced in October 2022 that it would create the IoT standard integration protocols to enable interworking and control between different IoT devices. To date, about 530 companies are participating in Matter.
According to the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), the U.S. is seeing property values and rents impacted by the presence of smart home systems, while China is also seeing a surge in the use of such services.
The Ministry of Science and ICT said it will launch an alliance involving domestic construction companies, home appliance manufacturers and AI companies by the end of the year so that the smart home industry can spread quickly.
To help local companies better compete in the global market, the ministry will establish an internationally accredited testing lab within the year so that local companies can receive global certification without going overseas.
The ministry added that it will build a technology support center to solve technical difficulties of small and medium-sized device manufacturers, and support their overseas expansion by letting them take part in major overseas exhibitions.
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