Panasonic India expands IoT product offerings, eyes larger play in home automation

Electronic goods firm Panasonic India today announced the expansion of its Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled connected-living platform Miraie. It launched connected refrigerator, washing machine, Wi-Fi fan, ROMA smart digital switches and smart Wi-Fi controller plugs and switches on the platform.

The new range of Miraie appliances will be available across Panasonic brand shops, large format retail outlets and online platforms from next week onwards.

These new models are an addition to the first generation of Miraie connected products including connected Air Conditioners (AC), smart door phones, Zigbee plugs & switches, which were introduced in 2020.

Dinesh Aggarwal, Joint Managing Director, Panasonic Life Solutions India told Moneycontrol that there is a rise in demand for smart and connected appliances.

"We are aligned with commercial and residential developers. So we can understand everyone’s needs. With these solutions one can really control their devices from anywhere. You could switch on your washing machine using your mobile phone or keep the heater ready at a particular temperature," he added.

Panasonic Life Solutions, which is an arm of Panasonic, sells products like switchgear, wires and lighting solutions and is also developing products for the home automation segment.

Aggarwal said that the idea was to bring in more appliances to this IoT/AI platform. The smart solutions are not just restricted to Panasonic appliances and can be used by other brand customers as well.

"If you have an AC of any other brand at home, you can buy a smart plug and connect it. So this makes the AC smart. We don’t want to restrict it to only Panasonic products and will make it brand agnostic. We are already inviting other manufacturers to join the Miraie platform," he added.

The price difference between a regular appliances and connected appliances would be less than 10 percent, according to him.

In India, home automation market is estimated to be at $1.5 billion in India, with an annual growth of 30 percent. Home automation refers to usage of wiring/switch solutions to ensure a connected appliances at home.

Aggarwal explained that they are working on three large apartment projects across India and also a hotel in Lucknow to offer these home automation smart solutions.

Going forward, Aggarwal said that the idea is to democratise the home automation solutions so that price is not a factor dissuading customers from purchasing these products.

"Today, the minimum budget required for home automation is Rs 2.5 lakh to 10 lakh. We want to offer home-automation solutions with a starting price of Rs 19,999," he added.

Panasonic’s new range of IoT-enabled appliances come with features like notification alerts of wash cycle basis weather conditions to setting customised wash programs as favourites in washing machine. There will be diagnosis mode in refrigerators to get updates of the refrigerator door, freezer door.

The Miraie platform can be operated via voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant for more flexibility in operations.