Oakter to invest $2 million in R&D

Oakter Smart Home, India's leading internet connected home appliances company, announced its plans to invest USD 2 million in research and development.

The company is a leading developer and seller of AI powered connected home appliances in India, and plans to further expand its technological capabilities by instituting a research centre in NOIDA, and hiring over 30 system engineers to develop the next generation AI for edge-computing inside home products.

"India has the best talent in software and hardware technology, and we shall harness young minds in developing the next generation of AI based hardware technology. Our vision is to develop world class AI based hardware products for India specific needs, and an investment of $2 million will be deployed to set up a world-class R&D centre, and recruit talent," said Shishir Gupta, Founder and CEO of Oakter Smart Home.

According to a recent report, India's connected appliances market alone is expected to cross Rs. 30,000 Crore by 2022, and Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Bengaluru account for a combined market share of over 50 percent currently.

Amazon and Google have recently launched a range of smart speakers with inbuilt voice assistant software called Alexa and Google Home respectively. These speakers together with Oakter smart switch and smart universal remote are used to control devices like Lights, Fan, AC and TV with voice commands.

Example of commands which are supported are: "Alexa, switch on lights", "Alexa, change channel to ESPN". The smart speakers by both Google and Amazon currently only support voice commands in English language. The initial target for this technology is urban centers like Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

Also, Embassy group recently unveiled their project in north Bengaluru called Embassy edge, where Amazon and Oakter have collaborated to voice control of complete apartment complex.

The company is also working with several luxury hotel chains to provide voice control. Globally hotel industry is seeing rapid adoption of voice control technology not only for controlling electrical appliances in hotel room, but also for services like concierge, room dining and housekeeping. Oakter Smart Home is working together with hoteliers to bring this technology for Indian hotels to keep up with global trends.