In response to the WSJ article, “Companies Chase the Promise of High-Tech Homes“, posted only two days ago…
Yes, the concept of a smart home is as old as the Jetsons, but the reality has already caught up to the vision—America is just behind. (And I thought my Silicon Valley upbringing put me at the forefront of technological know-how.)
It sounds like iControl Networks Inc.’s new start-up software is just another version of what already exists in multiple forms in say, Taiwan. I’m currently interning at Living 3.0 where walls and coffee tables are touch screen panels, doorbells text cellphones, and safety systems turn off gas stoves in the event of an earthquake. I can adjust the height of the kitchen counter, select what I want from the automated pantry via a screen, ask the virtual housekeeper to dim the living room lights, receive medical advice from the virtual nurse after I take my blood pressure…and much, much more. These are not mere concepts but tangible, working systems and devices built by companies such as Advantech, installed in our showrooms—and we’re not the only examples.
I’ve also visited NTU/Insight’s OpenLab, Secom’s MyCASA, and I plan on visiting more research centers, showrooms, and wired buildings before I go back home to manual doors and old-fashioned locks. Secom has a particularly advanced system where a child swipes an ID first before she keys in the door code to enter the house. The system then notifies her parents at work via cellphone of when she has gone home. The door still has a backup, manual lock, but the keypad switches up the order of the numbers every time so that eavesdroppers cannot learn the numeric passcodes. This notification system works much like a cellphone plan with a monthly fee, but there is also a call-in service that acts much like a community watch, bulletin board, and hotline all-in-one. This may seem way over the top—and it might be—but innovative, creative attempts are always refreshing.
The Wall Street Journal also suggests that the typical house will undergo a transformation much like offices did a decade ago, and I fully agree. To accommodate for our showrooms’ security, lighting, air-conditioning, internet systems, there are huge control panels, boxes, and small rooms in between walls and under raised floors. If houses are to be wired in the future, then architects must design houses differently and construction methods will also change. I saw construction photos of our showroom, and there are miniscule details such as tracks underneath the floor for wires. For internet, we have wifi and some computers still use ethernet cables, but we also have these single fiberglass strands delivering ridiculously fast internet to some computers. Perhaps many offices use these, but this is the first time I’ve seen them with my own eyes. In addition to Bluetooth, we also have ZigBee, so we have a map on a screen on the wall that looks just like Harry Potter’s Marauder’s Map…with my colleagues as real-life characters.
“…Backers believe that the environment has changed because of the spread of broadband access and wireless networks that deliver Web connections through the home.” Definitely. At our office, everything is linked to the internet, including the air conditioning system, which can even measure the amount of C02 in the rooms. The difference I see for the US and other countries where smart homes already exist is that we’re really into social media, and since gadgets like the Kodak Theater HD Player and Microsoft Surface already exist, I see my four passions—technology, architecture, design, and social media—all coming together.
I’m not so much encouraged by the “$5 billion a year market by 2011” but the endless possibilities this new market means for someone like me with interdisciplinary interests and no set path. I’m only 20 and I already have a B.A. in Architecture from Cal—I still have a lot of learning potential and an insatiable curiosity for innovation and tech, and I really hope to design my own smarchitecture one day.