Battle lines are being drawn. Armies are being marshaled. Territory is being eyed and strategies drawn up with military precision. But this war is about to be fought in your home and the giants squaring up to fight for supremacy are already household names – Google and Amazon.

Both of their offerings for home smart hubs, Googles Home and Amazon’s Echo family, are just starting to gain traction. And while they may be often positioned as smart speakers, they are clearly much, much more than that.

As more companies offer up new smart tech for the home, the idea of leveraging existing systems becomes highly attractive. Understandably so – as a manufacturer, having a pre-established platform to plug into (Nest is a great example) is a short cut to delivering a smart product without having to worry about a lot of the issues associated with managing the connectivity and security. Not only does the ecosystem offer a starting place for product development and innovation, it also enables the manufacturer to potentially avoid some of the complications around connecting to the internet and securing access controls. For example, building a smart mattress is a lot simpler when you can connect it to an existing ecosystem rather than build all the capabilities in from the ground up.

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