Smart homes are getting smarter.
By JAVIER ESPINOZA May 13, 2011
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Tech-savvy home owners are using now ubiquitous handheld devices, from Google’s Android phone to Apple’s iPad, to control virtually every corner of the house, from the lighting and heating systems to the über-trendy media rooms.
“Consumers now have the power in their hands to control and monitor their homes from anywhere in the world,” says Nicholas Ayre, director of London-based buying agent Home Fusion.
Mr. Ayre says the advent of web-enabled gadgets has given home technology an increasing mass-market appeal. “Using a smartphone or any Internet-enabled device, consumers can manage energy consumption and even home security, whether it’s switching your boiler off remotely or watching your CCTV,” he explains, adding that applications “have moved on considerably from multimedia rooms or plasma screens that come out of your bed to exciting new applications such as intelligent energy management.”
Here is a guide to some of the top trends in home technology.
Taking control
Just as the remote control changed the way we watch television, new technology in the home that allows owners to customize control of their property, often through a single click, is changing the way we live.
For Jay Anand, a currency trader in London and owner of two multimillion-pound homes here, remote access has made his hectic life more convenient.
“I am able to access the home cinema or switch the lights of another room without having to be there,” he says. “We also make sure we are using the energy in the best way we can without wasting natural resources.”
Mr. Anand just upgraded to an Apple operating system. “I used to have one panel in the kitchen to control the lighting and heating, then we moved to having access through the 13 TVs in the house,” he recalls. “But with this latest technology, I am able to access my audio, lighting, heating, alarm—even the CCTV— through my iPad or laptops.”
As technology has advanced, so have demands for what it can do. Home Fusion’s Mr. Ayre says people increasingly want systems that enable them to control their property with the precision of a Swiss watch, from the curtains down to the underfloor heating.
“People have moved from analog to much more intelligent devices,” Mr. Ayre says.
“Many of my clients are concerned about keeping the climate of certain rooms at the right temperature to preserve their expensive art and fabrics on the walls,” he says. “The current technology allows you to monitor and control the humidity constantly from your own phone if you wanted to,” including systems such as Daikin Airconditioning and Mitsubishi Electric.
Graham Gunn, U.K. distributor for Belgian-based home automation system manufacturer Teletask, says his clients are increasingly using Apple and other tablet technologies as interfaces to monitor their homes remotely. Other sought-after providers of smart home-control systems include Creston and AMX.
Roarie Scarisbrick from U.K.-based real-estate agent Property Vision says demand for these kinds of products has spiked considerably in recent months. “People are spending a lot on extraordinary remote systems that control everything in the house and allow you to control it from abroad or wherever you are through a simple browser in your phone,” he says. “If you are a businessman coming from Heathrow and want to set up your air conditioning at 22 degrees Celsius before you get home, you can do it from your computer.”
Though convenience is a deciding factor for most homeowners, Robert Hallam, the U.K. chairman of trade group Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (Cedia), says a rise in energy prices is pushing demand as well. “Regardless of your income, the cost benefit of installing these devices in the home to control the lighting and heating has been an important driver [for sales],” he says. “In large homes you need to heat the swimming pool, or there are large parts of the house that need less lighting and these systems will cut costs.”
Safety first
Handheld devices with web browsers have also triggered developments in home-security systems, allowing homeowners to monitor their houses any time, anywhere from the palms of their hands.
“Web-enabled cameras can now stream content to an Android phone or an iPhone, and people can see live what’s going on anywhere there’s an Internet connection,” Mr. Ayre says, adding that although CCTV systems aren’t new, the speed at which they can be set up and the ubiquitous access they provide is.
Devices are also becoming more sophisticated, giving home security a James Bond feel. Charles Smith, managing director of U.K. Sotheby’s International Realty, says he has noticed an increase in fingerprint recognition in homes.
“It adds another level of security and there’s been an uptake in the last five years,” he says. “This is a type of technology we hadn’t seen very often, but gradually homeowners with, say, a wine cellar are using it to help them to reduce the premium on their insurance.”
Entertainment at your fingertips
Another significant change underway is the way we store entertainment. “We have moved very quickly from storing content on a disk or on a hard drive to storing it using cloud-based entertainment services provided by the likes of Amazon,” Mr. Hallam says.
Earlier this year, the Seattle-based company launched a service that lets users access their music files from any computer, freeing up physical space in the house. Users are also able to upload photo and video files, and access them through a browser on virtually any computer. Similarly, movie server Kaleidescape allows users to store and manage their films, and makes them available to watch through a TV screen in any part of the house.
“We will see more people able to organize their entertainment content in a more coherent way and it will promote the use of more table-type computers in the house as people stream content in these devices,” Mr. Hallam says.
Home cinemas are also becoming the norm, according to Mr. Smith. “Although home cinemas started to feature in homes 10 years ago, they are more common now. The technology inside these rooms is also changing. People are installing 3D features and the technology is no longer provided by an overhead projector but there are open systems in place to run your home cinema on a Mac or a smartphone,” he says.
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