“Nowadays, people like to flaunt their switchboards, whereas, earlier it just played a functional role. However, now it plays a decorative role as well!”- says Motwani.
Starting a few years back, the trend of voice commands/recognition technology immensely helped the smart home segment to be widely recognized. “I foresee the voice command trend to take over India in the near future. The mobile application and the voice application are the current trends that appear to be catching up in the Indian market. And slowly people will understand what are the other benefits of Automation. These two are the stepping stones for the Indian Public into the world of Automation”, says Sachin Motwani, Director, Osum.
With rapid technological advancements, the IoT industry is booming all over the world. OSUM, the leading luxury brand for Smart Homes solutions that aims to provide a human-centric personalized living experience to the users, has a section dedicated to the Internet of things. “What we have in OSUM, a brand endeavouring to deliver True Smart Automation for residential and commercial spaces is the world’s first Hybrid IoT-based switch which controls everything in a house, the lights, fans, your curtains, your ACs, your geysers etc in a smart manner. It is a made-in-India product made for the Indian environment. It is a unique solution for the Indian market”, adds Motwani.
Home automation is a growing and competitive space, with foreign brands entering the Indian market. How does OSUM plan to stand out?
We are facing competition from international, including European, Asian, American brands as well as homegrown brands. However, we feel we are in the space right now where “Made-In-India” is the trend. Besides, any international technology or brands that are coming in, haven’t really focused or been developed for the Indian market. There is a lot of difference between the Indian consumer and an American consumer. We have been in this market for the last 5 years. We feel that our focus is on the upper middle segment. We are designing our product with international standards. While we cater to Indian consumers, we are also eager to take our products to the international market.
The COVID pandemic has greatly affected many industries. What are your views on its effect on the smart home industry, and will smart tech help us in avoiding similar infections?
The first couple of months were obviously very tough with the lockdowns. But, in the last year, people have coped with working and schooling from home. In the pre-COVID era, people kept neglecting and putting off the home space. But now people prefer to spend quality time at home. Therefore, they have to adjust to the same environment by playing with interiors and automation.
For example, with smart lighting controls, the lighting in the living room can be changed to a romantic setting with a single touch or even a voice command. Also, when it comes to home theatres, it is easier to convert the space into a multi-functional place with smart devices. With movie theatres being shut, the home theatre industry is rapidly booming. It has been a good year so far.
To build an excellent smart home both in terms of the technology used and the aesthetics involved, requires great co-ordination between Architects or Interior Designers and home/building automation Companies. What has OSUM’s experience been?
When we started, people didn’t understand what automation was all about, but now slowly people are understanding. We haven’t really been pushing our product to the masses yet, but we have been constant in our approach and focussed on architects and interior designers. We are not going full barrel in the market, so the market is still not completely ripe, but at the same time we are in touch with our clients and continuously bringing interesting products for their use. For example, instead of having multiple switchboards, we have designed the “one wall one switch”, which really helps the end-user to trigger things with one touch. Simultaneously, we have gotten rid of bulky switchboards.
We have different finishes and various shapes that seamlessly integrate with numerous aesthetics. This is what the Architects and interior designers are excited about. For example, our circular control.
What are the other offerings that OSUM prides itself on?
Our focus has primarily been on lighting control. Recently, we have developed smart drivers, where it is possible to dim and tune the lights. There are few solutions that can tune the lights from cool white to warm white. Though there are random solutions available, no professionally installed solutions are available yet. We have our, syne controller and our smart drivers that can communicate with each other with very simple wiring, allowing the users to save 80% on wiring costs. Also, they can control their home lights more efficiently. Lighting control is our forte. We also offer end to end solutions like Vrv control and other Acs, curtains, door locks and AV controls.
When talking about business in India, which Indian cities is OSUM’s focus on? Any plans for pan India expansion?
Yes, of course, we are present in more than 15 cities right now, with offices in Delhi and Mumbai. We have our channel partners and technical teams in Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Raipur, Chandigarh, Indore, Agra, Surat, Ahmedabad, Pune, and Jaipur. Recently we launched an experience centre in Faridabad.
