GOOGLE AND APPLE: TWO TECH FOES SHAPING THE WAY WE WILL USE ENERGY

Apple and Google, which are the current reigning champions of the technology world, have been the masters of innovation thanks to some incredible ideas that have shaped the technology we rely on today.

I previously wrote about these two tech titans being at the forefront of renewable clean energy. Now these pioneers are poised to be on top of the next great tech arena: ENERGY.

With smart thermostats, led lights and smoke alarms coming to the forefront of the new exciting innovations, they have not taken off like expected. This is not due to a lack of interest from the public. We are consumers, and with that, we love our gadgets and gizmos. So why have we not taken to the energy related technology that has recently hit the market? The answer to that, is convenience.

The difficulty in innovating the way we use energy, is the need to control these energy innovations. Until recently, smart thermostats. Smart locks and smart appliances all need a separate controller, or app to run them. In addition to that, there are many energy changes such as rooftop solar energy, Tesla’s energy storage and the electric car ramp up. All of these things are devices that could save you money while making your life easier. This issue has been the need for multiple devices and applications to make all of these devices operate efficiently. 

Since cell phones gave way to “smart phones”, Apple and Alphabet changed the world by getting devices in hundreds of millions of people’s hands. This has shaped the world and the way we interact with each other in it. Life has never been the same. Today these devices are a virtual blueprint about a person, allowing them to manage their lives from their phones. Our smart phones hold our pictures, our friends and our work information. These devices run our lives away from home.

That is until now. With the Google “Nest” and the Apple “HomeKit”, these two companies have started the smart energy revolution. But what is more important is they have created a platform that allows other companies to innovate energy without the need to figure out how to tie them all together. This simplifies the development process and allows for many new energy products. The fact that we have two standardized platforms to operate from makes energy innovation easier.

Consumers can now literally run their homes from the palm of their hands. Using our smart phones as “smart home” controllers, we can now handle everything we need to with our homes, even without being there. This transition is made much more easily by the fact that the average American already has the control panel in their pocket.

When the smartphone battlegrounds were drawn. Developers weren’t sure if they should develop for Blackberry, Apple, Google or Microsoft. Once Apple and Google won that war, there were thousands of innovative apps that hit the market for these phones. The same thing is happening in energy now because developers can build products for a platform that they know hundreds of millions of people will have the operating systems to control them.

So while Google and Apple don’t, by themselves, make all of these innovations possible, they give companies the platform that will help shape energy innovation. These energy platforms will shape the future of energy and how we can control it from the palms of our hands.

Matt Helland
Sr VP – North American Energy Advisory

Sources:

http://www.bloomberg.com
http://www.fool.com
http://www.cultofmac.com