How Life Will Change With Smart Homes

Yakovlev ArtyomBCG account manager

Contents

• What is a Smart Home?• Varieties & features;• Appliance;• Expedience;• Conclusion.

What is a Smart Home?

Definition:“A dwelling incorporating a communications

network that connects the key electrical appliances and services, and allows them to be remotely controlled, monitored or accessed.”

Remotely in this context can mean both within the dwelling and from outside the dwelling.

Three things a home needs to make it smart:1. Internal network – wire, cable, wireless2. Intelligent control – gateway to manage the

systems3. Home automation – products within the homes

and links to services and systems outside the home

The ApplianceAppliances and services – six main areas1. Environmental (heating/water, lighting, energy management, metering)2. Security (alarms, motions detectors, environmental detectors)3. Home entertainment (audio visual, Internet)4. Domestic appliances (cooking, cleaning, maintenance alerts)5. Information and communication (phone, Internet)6. Health (telecare, home assistance)

The Expedience

Having gathered six years of experience in creating smart home systems, SMARTech had conducted an analysis of the value of the equipment and appliances purchased by Polish investors and related to the KNX/EIB system (main system in Europe). As a result, the range of investment on a system was determined. It is related to the house usable space and investor requirements (prices given excluding VAT):

EUR 50-75/sq m - basic options (lighting control)EUR 75-100/sq m - typical options (lighting and heating/window blind control)EUR 100-150/sq m - comfortable variant (lighting, heating, window blinds/air conditioning)> EUR 150/sq m - luxury variant (lighting, heating, air conditioning, window blinds + extras)

The given prices cover the cost of the whole system (design, cabling, electric switch cabinets, system devices, outlets, system start-up) without actuators (lamps, radiators, window blinds, etc.). The often cited great price differences between systems in practice reach only up to a few per cent, because each system has to include cabling (which is often more expensive than the equipment itself), electric outlets, etc., so the price different in the system devices themselves does not greatly influence the cost of the whole installation.

What next? – Future developments

All the systems described above have the potential to be incorporated in new Smart Homes during the next 5 year; indeed some are already available as stand-alone products. The government is supporting the development of Smart Homes through the DTI’s Next Wave Technologies & Markets programme. Manufacturers are working on mass-market products that will form the hubs and gateways of the systems and also on the systems and services.

Smart Homes will be a reality very soon.