The world is currently learning the good and bad of working from home. Weeks ago, only a few of us were working from home consistently. For most others, this has been a whole new experience. Working from home consistently for many days on, will require a lifestyle as well as work-style shift. Are we prepared for it? Do we need a dedicated office at home, do have the technology – gadgets, bandwidth, security – to support it? These are things we need to give a hard look as we transcend into a new normal.

Samsung has been at the forefront of innovations for smart homes, and in the last few days our Bengaluru R&D Centre, where I work, has received a lot of inquiries related to smart home offices from technology partners, academia and even, and do not be surprised, real estate companies who build homes and offices.

With the reality of #WFH in front of us, we could see an upsurge in home offices becoming part of home designs across the country. And to cater to more people working from home, modern city planners will have to plan on providing better infra for electricity, fiber to home, broadband, 5G, Internet of Things (IoT) and co-meeting spaces in residential areas.

IoT and smart home automation, especially, could help make our work from home more comfortable and productive. Imagine several aspects of your home turning smart, making your home and your home office more ergonomic, easy to manage and also fun.

For example, smart lights with intensity control could help you reduce eye strain as you work with optimum lighting, and to avoid that glare during a video call, smart curtains and blinds could help at the press of a button.

A smart door lock and smartphone accessed door camera can help you avoid getting up and answering the door, unless it’s really necessary. And for those of us who have young children, setting up cameras in different rooms will help keep a tab without breaking the rhythm of work.

These days you get smart sensors of multiple kinds that can be installed in a home IoT set up for different kinds of applications. Take for instance simple sensors that connect with smart lights to alert you if your kids have managed to open the knife drawer, or if the temperature of the stove goes above a certain level. Blue light for one sensor, red light for another, yellow for the third, rather than an alarm that disturbs the entire household. You get the drift.

Then of course you have smart refrigerators, TVs, microwave ovens, robot vacuum cleaners, dish washers and air conditioners that work in tandem to give you the best experience possible.

While you work from home in a smart home environment, one thing to be extremely cautious is security of your home network. One needs to ensure that it isn’t just your laptop and phone that are secured. All gadgets and appliances on the network need to be secured, from your smart refrigerator to TVs to your vacuum cleaner.

[The author of this article, Ravindra Shet, is an employee of Samsung R&D Institute, Bengaluru & works in the area of IoT]

It has not been long since Jio brought a radical digital revolution to India. Now, the company is ready to pave the way for a fully digital India, in which IoT will reach every corner of the country’s society and economy. The IoT network, the first of its kind in the country, will support a variety of consumer and enterprise use cases such as vehicle tracking, smart appliances, smart metering, security, surveillance and more.

“Making sure that everyone benefits from mobile broadband that is both available and affordable to all is our top priority. We will once again partner with Samsung to offer a suite of innovative services for all users,” said Jyotindra Thacker, President of Reliance Jio Infocomm.

“We are delighted to contribute to Jio’s success story and rapid growth. We have been striving to offer the best experience possible to all users at Jio. Jio’s LTE network will unlock the potential of IoT and promise a much more convenient and safe environment for users,” said Youngky Kim, President and Head of Networks Business at Samsung Electronics.

The NB-IoT service not only utilizes the existing spectrum held by Jio, but is also enabled by a simple software upgrade of the already installed base stations. Further deployed is the new and dedicated Cellular IoT virtualized core. The commercial NB-IoT network successfully established by Jio and Samsung in Mumbai in February 2018 will soon impact other parts of the country with new and compelling use cases.

The agreement represents another phase of collaboration between the two companies, in which the targeted outcomes are faster internet access for users across India, as well as the generation of unexplored services and business models for enterprises.

About Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited:

Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (“Jio”), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (“RIL”), has built a world-class all-IP data strong future proof network with latest 4G LTE technology. It is the only network conceived and born as a Mobile Video Network from the ground up and supporting Voice over LTE technology. It is future ready and can be easily upgraded to support even more data, as technologies advance on to 5G, 6G and beyond.

Jio will bring transformational changes in the Indian digital services space to enable the vision of Digital India for 1.2 billion Indians and propel India into global leadership in digital economy. It has created an eco-system comprising network, devices, applications and content, service experience and affordable tariffs for everyone to live the Jio Digital Life. As part of its customer offers, Jio has revolutionized the Indian telecom landscape by making voice calls for Jio customers absolutely free, across India, to any network, and always. Jio makes India the highest quality, most affordable data market in the world so that every Indian can do Datagiri.