Vision of the intelligent home
The intelligent house will manage our workplaces and homes based on our actual needs and climate conditions. This will make the daily lives of busy consumers a little easier by offering monitoring and information management.
Help for all
Wireless communication in the home is ideal when you want to switch appliances on and off, control the heating or dim the lights. It is also able to keep an eye on your property and can, for example, trigger an alarm in the event of break-in, alert you to damp in the basement, or tell you if your electricity consumption becomes inexplicably high.
Obstacles need to be overcome first
The intelligent home must first overcome several obstacles before it achieves its breakthrough, but now the system is on the launch pad and is merely awaiting wider exposure.
The obstacles are the result of 2 things:
- ‘Closed systems’: In particular the marketing of ‘closed’ (proprietary) systems, that cannot be combined with other products and concepts. ‘Closed’ systems cannot be expanded so easily, and prices for extra equipment and additional services are higher because producers of ‘closed’ systems have a market monopoly.
- Too many cables: Most of the appliances sold on the market have cables. This makes them expensive to install and less flexible when they need to be moved around.
Lessons learnt from the world of IT
The first IT systems on the market were total systems, where a single supplier was responsible for delivering hardware, devices and software in one package. Total systems lost out to PCs, whose open communication standards paved the way for explosive market growth, in which a large number of companies and competencies competed.
My Home – the start of the intelligent home
My Home is the technological platform for the intelligent home and, in the future, will act as a control centre for consumer appliances and energy saving equipment.
My Home helps users manage their electricity consumption more intelligently. This is a free tool which analyses electricity consumption and identifies specific savings opportunities.
Page last updated 06.10.2008