Smart homes in the ’90s were like finicky classic cars: When they worked, they were pretty nifty. But most of the time they were too hard to run, too hard to fix and too likely to break to really get much mileage.
Now there are a host of gadgets and systems designed to be more intelligent and simpler to use, and many more will hit the market soon.
That doesn’t mean every developer is building the smart gadgetry into model homes now. But it does mean that most are building in the capacity to handle those systems later, and a few are offering smart home systems as an upgrade option.
“There are substantially more people not only buying the systems but making sure their homes are prepared for them,” said Jeff Hoover, president of Audio Advisors in West Palm Beach, Fla., and president of the national Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association. “Things that we have been doing for years for large custom homes are beginning to trickle down.”
As a result, the market is expected to boom. Keith Ostwald, vice president of marketing for Smart Systems Technologies in Albuquerque, N.M., said research projects estimate the home automation market will balloon from $800 million a year now to $6 billion to $8 billion four years from now.
The best news for existing homeowners and renters may be the flood of gadgets designed to reduce or eliminate the need for additional wiring to add to your house’s brainpower.
The new systems combine the best of all kinds of units sold separately now — telephones, security systems, fire alarms, remote controls, audio-video — and the whole is definitely bigger than the sum of its parts.
For example, a fire alarm can cause the lighting system to automatically light a path to the exits. Enter a stairwell and the motion detectors can sense your presence and turn on the stairway lights. You can answer your doorbell over the phone and press a button to unlock your gate or front door.
Best of all, experts are predicting these systems will become mass-market products over the next five years. They will be available everywhere, and you’ll actually be able to afford them.
“It’s going to become a part of everyone’s lifestyle,” Hoover said.
So far the hang-up has been the large number of competing systems that don’t talk with each other and the small number of competent people to install them.
The systems were so bad that even the words “home automation” have become taboo in the industry. Installers now call it “home networking” or “systems integration.”
That may be changing. As different systems morph together, security companies are taking on medical alerts and automatic door locks, audio-video installers are building in intercoms and home computer networks and computer professionals are working on digital entertainment systems.
That opens up the number of people doing the work. And with the major companies in several markets finally talking about agreeing on a single electronic language that their products will speak, it might become easier to use and keep up a home automation system.
Big players interested
Even better is the news that the 800-pound gorillas of the computer industry — Microsoft, Intel, Cisco — are talking about ways to produce these types of systems.
People in the home automation area are still talking about Bill Gates’ introduction of “Freestyle” — a type of software that would run house electronics from a single remote — at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year.
“For years, we have tried to find a way to hit critical mass in this industry,” said Bob Kranson, chief executive of Axiom Design Inc. in Pleasanton, Calif.
His is one of the few companies in the nation that do home systems design without doing any installation or product sales, which means he’s in the unusual position of being able to comment on all systems without pushing the ones he represents.
For home systems to achieve their potential, he said, they’ve got to do three things: sell on store shelves, give reliable results and operate the same way every time.
It hasn’t come as fast as installers thought, but they’re betting in the next five years that you will want to pay $40 a month for a package of custom services, ranging from security monitoring to movies on demand and electronic program listings for your television.
What to expect
Here’s a rundown of what you can expect to see on the market now and in the immediate future:
New power line and phone line systems use the electrical outlets and phone jacks in your house to communicate between devices.
That capability has been around for a while, but there were so many different products speaking so many different languages that it made it hard for anyone but professionals to install the systems and keep them working.
But now that the demand for electronic communication between areas of the house has grown, those types of networking are finally hitting their stride.
The demand has been fueled in part by today’s increasing home sizes (who can yell across the house to call someone in modern suburban estates?), the increasing numbers of people with fast Internet access who want to use it all over the house and the numbers of folks with multiple PCs.
But don’t just think of PCs. Those connections mean that security motion detectors, cameras, intercoms — you name it — can also talk with each other with no new wiring.
Wireless systems
Even less invasive are new wireless systems, some designed especially for renters. The motion, smoke and other detectors scattered through the house are battery-operated and beam their signals to the central security station.
Home entertainment and home theater are becoming vital parts of home automation systems. It used to be that these entertainment devices were afterthoughts, and the most sophisticated anyone wanted to get was to have radio signals piped into the different rooms of the house.
No longer.
“The home electronics industry is on fire for home theater,” Kranson said.
That means feeding signals from things like DVD players or satellite boxes to any television in the house (and controlling them from those rooms). It means building in giant audio-video systems for living rooms and dens.
And it means installing smart video systems like personal video recorders that track what family members want to watch and automatically record it to a hard drive for viewing — minus commercials — any time.
Home automation systems used to be run solely from keypads located around the house. Think about the average security system: a few motion detectors, a couple of door or window sensors and a code pad to keep the thing from registering a false alarm. Many home automation systems were no more complicated than that.
Simpler to use
Today’s systems offer more control options than ever before, but they’re simpler to use. You control what happens in your home by using a remote control, a keychain fob, a computer software program, a touch screen — even by walking into a room.
These systems are getting more sophisticated. Expect within the next year or two to see setups where what happens depends on who arrives.
Just like today’s luxury cars, where the seat and mirror positions change automatically according to whose key is inserted in the ignition, tomorrow’s houses will change according to who keys in a code or presses a remote button.
The systems are also becoming more interactive. In the past, you would program what you wanted to happen and then make it occur by hitting a command key.
Today’s systems tell you what’s going on in your house and allow you to respond.
If your kids come home from school and key in their code to get in the door, for example, today’s systems can send you an e-mail to let you know they’re home safe. If your garage door is left open for longer than a set amount of time, your system can tell you on touch screens throughout the house — and let you remotely close it from any of them.
Eventually, Smart Systems’ Ostwald said, these technologies will be embedded into your new home. You won’t have to install them or program them, any more than you would install or program the computer chips that run the accessories in your automobile.
The television or your PC will turn into Mission Control, he said, and you’ll be interacting with your system with plain English commands and icons so simple you’ll be able to figure it out at a glance.
“It’s here to stay,” he said. “The benefits are real. Our technology will evolve tenfold over the next two years.”
Coming to a smart home near you:
– Though there has been networking capability between devices in the home for some time, it is finally hitting stride. It’s not just PCs that are communicating with each other, but also security motion detectors, cameras and intercoms.
– New wireless systems, some designed especially for renters, beam signals from motion, smoke and other detectors scattered through the house to a central security station.
– Home entertainment and home theater are becoming vital parts of home automation systems. That means feeding signals from DVD players, for example, to any television in the house. It means building in giant audio-video systems for living rooms and dens. And it means installing smart video systems like personal video recorders that track what family members want to watch and automatically record it to a hard drive for viewing — minus commercials — any time.
– Expect within the next year or two to see home automation setups where what happens depends on who arrives. Tomorrow’s houses will change according to who keys in a code or presses a remote button.
– Systems are becoming more interactive. In the past, you would program what you wanted to happen and then make it occur by hitting a command key. Now systems tell you what’s going on in your house and allow you to respond.
— Heather Newman/Knight Ridder/Tribune
