What are the benefits of 5G to smart living?

Among the biggest trends that amazed the tech world earlier this year is definitely the birth of 5G. With the 5G revolution started by providers in the US, South Korea and other countries, the world has already experienced some the greatest benefits of this technology to the smart living, mobile, consumer electronics, and automotive industries, and is looking forward to see more.

Let’s zero in on the fast-growing market smart living. What is the 5G trend promising here?

5G can unify the fragmented smart home ecosystem of standards. If years ago, some homeowners were having a hard time connecting smart home devices, as certain products work only with ZigBee, some Z-Wave, others Bluetooth, and a number with Wi-Fi, this can change in the near future.

With most devices 5G-enabled soon, managing the home using one connection that’s supported by most brands and also faster is easy. As we all know the 5G network is promoted to boast up to 10Gbps or a thousand times faster than 4G. Who wouldn’t want an upgrade? CNETbelieves 5G will “clean up an ocean of standards” and even support more devices.

By more devices, this means low-power and always-on products. 5G makes use of LPWAN (low-power wide-area network) and according to Techtalks this “will allow multiple in-home devices to bypass home networks, and the required setup, and achieve a direct connection instead.” Yes, you’ve read it right, no more Wi-Fi internet setups needed. It’s going to be device-to-device in the near future.

5G also covers a wider range compared to Wi-Fi per a report by IoT for all. Note that there’s already Wi-Fi 6 that also promises faster connections but it is expected that 5G will remain the choice for smart homes due to the range and the said simpler installation that does not need every device to be configured to Wi-Fi.

Another 5G benefit is improved security products. CNET points out that with 5G's low-latency feature, a “connected” security camera, for instance, will only take 1 to 2ms to respond to threats it sees and send alerts to a paired device. It is not hard to imagine other smart security alert systems doing the same through the technology. What a perfect time it is to get hold of these products.

With the big advantages 5G is bringing, we can expect more cities and homes to turn smart, and suppliers to offer more 5G solutions to the fast-growing smart living market.