THE SMART HOMES – A PROMISING BUSINESS DOMAIN WHICH WORTH ATTENTION OF ROMANIAN TELECOM COMPANIES

In the paper the authors present an overview of the main worldwide development directions in the Smart Home solutions, review the Smart Home services, and give recommendations to potential Romanian and foreign investors in the establishment of such services in Romania. The homes and how people live and behave in them have evolved dramatically in the last fifteen years. Today, the authors are able to present a few major trends that revive the Smart Homes: social trends, digital addiction and the fact that global players see the home like the kernel of the digital atmosphere that surrounds us. The purpose was to identify an opportunity today, as these trends have a satisfying maturity degree.Studying various projects, authors were able to estimate that Smart Homes revenues will increase with 8-10 % per year until 2020 in Romania. These estimates include both direct revenues like home automation products/services and indirect revenues like maintenance of the new devices/services.