While neither company is in the habit of announcing products or platforms outside of their own events, both Google and Apple have looked poised to make significant smart home announcements for the past six months. With CES, a prime candidate for such an announcement, now out of the way, we have to ask when the Google and Apple smart homes will arrive. A likely reason for the slow progress suggested by a recent Accenture report, which found that consumer enthusiasm for tech had significantly waned in the past year, and that the small growth of IoT devices is nowhere near enough to compensate for the falls in smartphone, laptops and TV purchasing intent and consequent revenue. The Accenture report was…