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What is a smart home?

The words ‘Smart Home’ (sometimes known as home automation, intelligent home etc.), gets mentioned a lot, and can be confusing for many.

I avoid using ‘smart home’ (or variations of), as it often implies the addition of unnecessary, complicated, cumbersome electronic technology solutions, that might require a rocket science degree to operate, and an unlimited financial budget to implement.

All homes have the ability to be smart, on different levels. Keeping in mind that technology doesn’t neccessarily have to be electronic, houses have evolved to incorporate various technologies, and have become more electronic as our awareness to have them better connected to ourselves and the outside world is realised.

All homes have multiple services and utilities; electricity, gas, water, security, television, internet, etc. that can be integarted and connected to be provide better comfort, convenience, security, and energy efficiency.

Imagine your home being customised based on what you are doing at particular times of the day: Lighting automatically dims to provide a relaxing ambience at night, or becomes brighter for dedicated tasks. Heating and cooling automatically turns on and adjusts to the optimal temperature. Your home can automatically adapt to make your living environment more comfortable.

We are very predictable in our daily lives – from when we wake up, exercise, go to work, return home, eat, relax, and sleep. Many systems in and around the home can be automated, based on our daily routines: Blinds and curtains can open at sunrise, and close at night, or close when it’s too bright or too hot. Lights can turn on when you arrive home at night, or turn off when a room is vacant or nobody is home, providing new levels of convenience.

The security and safety of your home, family, and property can be greatly enhanced. Outdoor lighting can automatically illuminate your property to deter unwanted activity, and turn on at night when there is movement. Keyless entry frees you from fumbling for keys when you come home, with automated lighting illuminating your home. Video cameras can not only record, but provide personal alerts to notify you in real time when there is irregular activity, even when you are not at home.

A home can know exactly when it is day and night, summer and winter, or when it is occupied. Power and lights can automatically turn on and off, and adjust to the optimal brightness, only when needed. Heating and cooling self-adjusts to maintain ideal comfort levels. Your home’s energy usage can be optimised to incorporate alternate energy such as solar, battery storage, and electric vehicle charging. Controlling power improves energy efficiency – saving money, and reducing carbon footprints.

By definition, a home that is smart or intelligent, can change it’s state in response to various situations. With many homes already having various technology products and systems, the benefits of having the right technologies integrated can be easily realised, to seamlessly connect our homes and lifestyle.

With developments in artifical intelligence and machine learning, we are getting closer to having technologies learn and respond, based on our habits, routines, and past experiences. For our homes, this will be the next exciting step to improve our lifestyle.

In the same way that cars evolved to incorporate electronic technologies, similarly, houses will follow. Electric windows, automated heating and cooling, handsfree communication, and improved vehicle safety are examples that are so common that they are now standard in modern cars.

Features and benefits of home and lifestyle technologies are endless, as they can be customised for your lifestyle. With the right advice, technology can greatly benefit our lifestyle, with improvements in comfort, convenience, security, energy efficiency.

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Simple Can Be Harder Than Complex

The evolution of LED lighting together with modern lighting design philosophies, and local design and building regulations, sees more complex lighting designs today than those of the past.

With more lights and different types of lights in a building, effective control cannot be achieved with traditional switching and dimming inputs. Multiple switching and dimming interfaces becomes overly complex, and counter-intuitive.

Compounded complexity

Even with the progression electronic lighting control systems, most systems merely replicate traditional switching and dimming control, albeit electronically. The pitch and promise of simplicity and intelligent control is rarely delivered to the project and end-user.

Ironically, by way of the ‘technology functionality paradox’, typical electronic lighting control systems can become even more complex, more counter-intuitive, and more confusing for the end-user.

I see many projects, and hear our many more, where the lighting control system has been ‘designed’ to control lights in a space with the user experience only considered as a means to switch or dim, resulting in an inadequate system that has little value.

A simple solution may not be the easiest

A paradigm shift is needed to think about how a building, room or space is actually going to be used – smart building systems should be designed for the user.

A smart building needs to be controlled by a quality networked lighting control and automation system that considers what the application is, who the user is, and how the spaces are to be used.

For close to thirty years the Australian designed and manufactured Dynalite lighting control system by Philips has been built on concepts of areas and presets, in a similar way that professional lighting engineers have efficiently controlled complex lighting consoles for decades.

A single button preset adjusts all lights to predetermined levels. The complexity of the lighting control system is expertly handled in the background, while the end-user enjoys a simple user interface.

The lighting control system becomes even more simple for the user by introducing intelligent sensors, timers and scheduling, and integration of other electronic systems.

Why are systems not simple?

So, why are many (perhaps most) electronic lighting control systems not simple and intuitive? Well, it’s because making things simple can be actually harder than just leaving then as being complex. The project needs to invest professional and expert time and thought to make a system simple, however, the return on investment may not be immediate.

Unfortunately some project stakeholders and other project influencers who don’t understand the vision of smart buildings, may have a greater focus on reducing costs and/or increasing profit margins. The ‘simpleness’ of a system becomes ‘valued engineered’ out of the project, perhaps for a lesser system.

The client is often left (sometimes unknowingly) with an inept and underwhelming control system for the next thirty to forty years that will never achieve the functionality requirements of a smart building of the future.

As a consequence, many electronic lighting control systems receive a bad rap for being overpriced, cumbersome and dysfunctional, and are never considered for the next project.

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Design for the Future, Now

electric-home-of-the-future

 

About 6-8 millions years ago, the common ancestors of humans and apes went their seperate evolutionary ways. The human brain became considerably larger by having the unique skills that helped develop it. Ever since these early days, humans have found solutions to problems, and found new methods and inventions to become more efficient. In our quest to populate Earth and the universe beyond, science and technology that will take us into the future.

As we progress further into the 21st century, we truly live in a technological world. Technology is a solution to being efficient, to overcome problems, to being connected. We have had a century of many technological advances and modern conveniences that provided us with time saving appliances and information hungry devices. We now live in a connected world, where appliances and devices are connected to each other by a huge network – the cloud. Welcome to the Internet of Things.

The early 20th century saw the introduction of domestic technology, or household machines. These were typically appliances that made life easier (e.g. sewing machines, washing machines, vacuum cleaners etc.). In 1939 Popular Mechanics Magazine predicted the future with a cover and article The Electric Home of the Future, that depicted many modern day appliances.

Early adopters created their own ‘smart homes’ (a loose term by todays standards) in the 1960s after the visions of the dreamers of the 1950s. The first home automation machines arrived in the late 1960s in the form of the home computers, that were very large, and very expensive. Such machines or computers, could be programmed to perform simple tasks – turn appliances on/off, adjust temperature etc.

In the 1970s, the grandfather of home automation, X10 became available – a simple, but unreliable system that could control appliances over power lines. The 1980s and 1990s saw the development of networked systems (e.g. lighting control and wireless data) and digital media (e.g. Compact Disc by Philips and Sony). The Apple iPod arrived in the early 2000s, followed my smart phones with revolutionary touch screen user interfaces. The rest is history, as devices become even more convenient and connected.

There are technological steps we need to take in order to advance into the future. For our personal living, we currently enjoy the convenience of smart appliances (e.g. lighting systems, digital music systems etc.) and smart devices (e.g. mobile phones, tablets, wearables etc.), that when integrated, provide the basics of a smart home.

In a smart home, multiple appliances and systems are connected to each other, and controlled by smart devices. With the progression of the Internet of Things, smart homes will evolve and become connected homes within smart cities.

Home owners, specifiers, and other influential stakeholders need to be aware of the latest smart home technologies, and implement at least the core systems – power, lighting and data, to best future proof the home.

If we design for today, we will only have homes for today, and not for the future. Design for the future, now.