The Smart Home

The Smart Home

The Connected Home, or Smart Home[79], is a home or building, usually a new one, that is equipped with special structured wiring to enable occupants to remotely control or program an array of automated home electronic devices by entering a single command. For ex, a homeowner on vacation can use a Touchtone phone to arm a home security system, control temperature gauges, switch appliances on or off, control lightning, program a home theater or entertainment system, and perform many other tasks. The field of home automation is expanding rapidly as electronic technologies converge. The home network encompasses communications, entertainment, security, convenience, and information systems.

A Smart Home will be a living place where you can control everything out of your bed, never have to make a grocery list again, or lose your keys, or have the coolest gadgets in your own place. Through the networking of individual system modules, preset scenes are executed, which make your everyday life both comfortable and safe. The garage door opens, the doorway is sufficiently illuminated, the blinds are raised, and the alarm system is deactivated. When you leave your house, at the touch of a button the lights will be switched off, the heating is turned down and the alarm system is activated. The door communication system installed at the entrance is extremely robust, whether resistance and solid metal housing and push buttons. Since the station can only be dismantled using a special tool, it is well protected against sabotage, depending on the system configuration, when the bell button is pressed in the dark the exterior lightning is switched on to welcome your visitors. Optimum communication and safety is of course always guaranteed. The camara which is not visible externally supplies sharp images and the digital signal processor guarantees the best speech quality. The indoor station has video and audio functions, simple and convenient adjustments and operation is guaranteed by the touch screen. Individual messages are recorded and saved with the voice memo function. When the door bell is pressed, the camara button is automatically installed, together with the time of day. The menu can be retrieved by using the touch screen, where you can find a chronological display of pictures. You are greeted in your house thanks to the technology. The blinds are raised and the ceiling lights are switched on.

A presence detector controls the lightning in the room, which saves energy by switching on when someone is finally in the room. The right mood is always created by the room controller even in the quiet room, whether it’s a game of chess or a cozy evening by the fire. A KNX Flat Panel PC is used as a modern cockpit for installation and as a control throughout the house. A facility pilot informs you typically about: Audio, Energy, Security, Heating, Blinds, Lighting, Weather. Communication between the individual rooms is possible without any problems, with the indoor stations by an internal call, whereby indoor audio stations can be combined with indoor video stations. Several indoor stations can be linked to the outdoor station by the front door, but it is possible to open the door from several rooms. A sensor on the roof records, lighting and weather conditions, as well as time by a radio signal. In addition to ensuring protection to the sun, the blinds are saved automatically.   This overview shows you the available functionality in a Smart Home. It is today expensive, and not accessible to higher-middle class and above.

However, consider the potential from a business perspective. The technology that a house uses to become a Smart Home is developed and provided by service providers. Home automation is to become a 16.4 billion USD industry by 2019[80]. One of the most typical applications are Alarm Systems, which have joined a network of home security dealers with telco and cable providers. In Europe, utilities such as British Gas (UK) and Essent (The Netherlands) have used Alarm company services platform to provide energy management services such as remote energy monitorizing utilizing a smartphone, tablet or web browser. The business model is such that the user subscribes to a smart home service from their local cable provider, phone company or electric utility, who are in turn powering their services with a little help from a new class of smart home service platform providers.