After replacing the router, Mr. Liu from Hengyang, Hunan Province spent several days reconfiguring and debugging the smart devices at home. Previously, he set up a "leaving home mode": when the mobile phone is positioned within a certain range, the lamps and sockets will automatically turn off. After the network environment changes, the linkage of all devices will become invalid, and the trigger conditions, delay length, etc. need to be reset according to the new network environment.
Changing the router requires debugging it from scratch. Mr. Liu’s experience is not unique. A reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily" found that in recent years, smart home products are moving from single-product networking to whole-house collaboration, and new issues such as quality and safety, privacy protection and after-sales responsibilities have also followed. Many consumers lament that some smart homes do not truly free their hands, but instead create new usage burdens: fancy functions but insufficient stability, and a disconnect between promotional presentation and actual experience.
In September 2026, eight departments including the Ministry of Commerce issued the "Action Plan to Promote Smart Home Consumption", proposing seven measures to expand the supply of high-quality smart homes, improve the smart home standard system, and support smart home consumption. It is clear that it is necessary to improve the intelligent grading and evaluation standard system for smart home products and accelerate the formulation and implementation of mandatory national standards such as smart home interconnection.
Many smart functions
Experience often discounted
When he first came into contact with smart home, what Mr. Liu looked forward to most was voice control - he didn't have to find a switch or pick up his mobile phone, he could operate the device just by saying a word. However, the actual experience is that if the home environment is slightly noisy, the recognition effect will decrease. The device sometimes does not respond, and sometimes it is accidentally touched. Over time, he prefers to directly open the mobile app to operate.
The "autonomous learning" in product promotion is also different from Mr. Liu's original idea. He originally thought that the device could gradually sense the user's home habits and actively adjust. However, some of the actual functions relied more on rules set in advance, and another operation would be performed after a certain condition was met.
Public data from the State Administration for Market Regulation shows that in 2025, the national 12315 platform received 152,000 smart device complaints and reports, a year-on-year increase of 26.6%, of which 29,000 were smart home complaints and reports. Complaints reflect that some products over-promote the "smart" label, but their actual functions are limited to basic networking or simple remote control; problems such as failed system upgrades, app crashes, poor device compatibility, and data synchronization failures are not uncommon.
During the interview, the reporter found that some consumers do not deny the convenience brought by smart homes, but the other side of convenience is the real energy cost.
Mr. Wang, who comes from Hangzhou, Zhejiang, is a programmer. He installs and debugs most of the smart devices at home by himself. He himself enjoys the convenience brought by automation and no interaction, but when the elderly and children also come to use this home system, smart devices become an obstacle. Many smart panels that look outstanding in appearance are not ideal in actual use.
After long-term use, Mr. Wang is more concerned about post-maintenance: the smart panel is distorted and the wireless sensor needs to be reset after replacing the battery, which means extra time and cost. In his opinion, if you do not understand the principles of smart systems at home at all, users may need to frequently rely on service personnel when replacing equipment and adjusting the network in the future. "Smart home is like a double-edged sword. People who are willing to make troubles can reap some small joys in life. However, once the person responsible for debugging in an ordinary family has no time to take care of it, the entire system will easily be paralyzed."
Many interviewees said that there are often only a few high-frequency functions that are actually used - turning on the lights when entering the door, cutting off the power when leaving home, and reminding the laundry to end. They care more about the stability of product functions than the dazzling number of functions. After smart home enters the home, what consumers buy is no longer an independent piece of hardware, but a system that requires long-term operation; the more complex the function, the higher the requirements for stability and after-sales service.
Difficulty in implementing linkage
Delivery is simplified
From product research and development to actually entering the home and running stably, there are still links such as solution design, installation and commissioning, and subsequent maintenance.
Mr. Ning from Chengdu, Sichuan, is a whole-house smart lecturer at a production-education integration base of a home appliance brand. He is mainly responsible for training personnel in program design, installation and maintenance. After contacting a large number of customers, he found that most ordinary consumers' understanding of smart homes is still superficial: "Lights, curtains, and air conditioners can be turned on and off with voice control, and many consumers think this is smart." He believes that the automation scenarios that equipment and systems can achieve are far more than these, but after entering the installation and delivery process, many high-end functions will not really fall into the home.
“Users do not have a sufficient understanding of ‘intelligence’, and some service providers do not want to be thankless, so they tacitly deliver low-performance products.” Mr. Ning explained that the more complex the scene settings, the higher the initial debugging costs. The risk of subsequent failures due to network changes and equipment replacement will also increase, and service providers will have to bear heavier after-sales responsibilities. In reality, after many projects are delivered, users still frequently use basic operations such as turning on and off lights and controlling curtains. "For example, the dimming and color-adjusting smart lights that are highlighted in the promotional selling points will only be used in one or two commonly used states in most households, and the complex color-adjusting functions are basically idle."
Cross-brand ecological barriers have further compressed the actual available smart space. Mr. Qi runs a smart home studio in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. He noticed that many families often choose one brand as the main smart ecology during the decoration stage, but it is difficult to purchase all major appliances such as refrigerators, washing machines, and air conditioners from the same brand. "Some devices can be connected and linked at the technical level, but every time a third-party device is connected, the supplier has to bear an additional layer of after-sales risk. Many service providers simply no longer do in-depth integration, allowing consumers to retain multiple brands of Apps and control them separately."
"This means that interconnection is not just a matter of technical protocols. Whether the equipment can be connected is one of them. Who will design the solution, debug the equipment, and who will maintain it after a failure. These issues affect the user's final experience." Mr. Qi said.
As smart homes move from single product control to multi-device linkage, the industry has also put forward higher requirements for the comprehensive capabilities of practitioners. Mr. Ning introduced that qualified practitioners must not only be familiar with products, but also need to master knowledge of strong and weak electricity, home decoration technology, automation logic, etc. At present, many employees have switched careers from lighting sales, electricians, weak current and other positions, and their backgrounds are complex. Some leading companies have made up for their talent shortcomings through internal training and business certification. However, such certifications are mostly independent actions of the companies, and there is still a lack of unified professional competency evaluation and certification system at the industry level.
Standard red line
Rights and interests are protected
The reporter noticed that compared with the professional certification system that is still lacking in the installation and service links, the product side is building an increasingly clear set of standards around "what counts as intelligence."
In 2025, four national standards for smart home interconnection will be released, setting unified rules for the access and linkage of devices of different brands and categories.
Starting from May 1, 2026, two national standards for smart home appliances will be implemented simultaneously: one divides product intelligence into five levels from L1 to L5 from the dimensions of data management, human-computer interaction, and intelligent control, and requires companies to clearly mark the actual utility of intelligent functions, network access methods, and information security risk warnings; the other focuses on home scenarios such as environmental management, health management, and energy resource utilization, and puts forward corresponding technical requirements for intelligent effects. The "Guidelines for Quality and Safety Risk Classification Evaluation of Smart Home Appliances" released in July 2026 will be implemented from February 1, 2027, and the scope of evaluation will be further expanded to the fields of information security and data and privacy protection.
Many industry insiders interviewed said that national standards provide a unified basis for product development and quality evaluation, so that consumer rights and interests are protected, but the actual implementation of the standards still depends on whether companies can transform them into research and development, testing, delivery and maintenance processes. From the current point of view, professional rulers still need to be transformed into easy-to-understand purchasing references so that consumers can understand them.
Industry insiders interviewed believe that the next competition in the smart home industry may no longer be "who has more connected devices", but "who has a more stable experience and clearer responsibilities." As risk assessment and intelligence levels are gradually understood by the market, companies need to replace conceptual packaging with verifiable quality and service. The products that can really stay in the home in the future are often not the most complex devices advertised, but systems that can work stably for a long time, be updated in a timely manner, and have clear boundaries of responsibilities.
"With the gradual improvement of intelligence levels and interconnection standards, consumers can make judgments from several aspects when purchasing: first, focus on the actual functions rather than simply comparing the number of functions; second, confirm whether the device can be integrated into the existing home system; third, understand the intelligent evaluation and performance boundaries of the product; fourth, pay attention to data management and device security, and pay attention to home images, door lock status and health. Monitored products should clarify the scope of data collection, storage methods, permission settings and usage boundaries of related functions. At the same time, pay attention to whether the device supports necessary software updates and which functions can still be used normally after the relevant services are stopped. Fifth, understand the after-sales and long-term maintenance arrangements in advance," said Ge Youshan, executive director of Beijing Jiawei Law Firm, which has long been concerned about consumer rights protection.
In Ge Youshan’s view, the standardized development of smart homes requires the dual-track development of “standards + laws”. National standards continue to improve, establishing a clearer evaluation basis for smart home appliances, smart furniture and whole-house smart systems - interconnection specifications help reduce obstacles to device collaboration, intelligent classification and scene standards promote the combination of product capabilities and practical applications, and quality and safety evaluations further expand the industry's focus on product reliability.
At the legal level, Ge Youshan gave examples. Fingerprints, facial recognition information collected by smart door locks, data collected by health monitoring equipment, and home camera images that can identify specific natural persons are mostly sensitive personal information listed in the Personal Information Protection Law. Enterprises should obtain individual consent for processing such information and inform individuals of the purpose, method, necessity of processing, and impact on personal rights and interests. According to the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law, operators shall provide consumers with true and comprehensive product information and shall not make false or misleading publicity; if the function promotion is inconsistent with the actual performance or there are quality problems, consumers may request repair, replacement, or return in accordance with the law.
Ge Youshan suggested that consumers should properly retain evidence such as product promotion pages and purchase receipts. If their legitimate rights and interests are harmed, they can protect their rights according to law through relevant channels.
Our reporter Zhao Li / Our intern Lu Yingge
