On this week I want to present article and video about smart homes for everyone:)
I think that this is very interesting topic please read the article and watch the video:
http://home.howstuffworks.com/smart-home3.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i73n-LTXPIM
In my opinion it is next step for people to make their life easier :)
The idea of that solution is based on the network which is similar to the WiIFi network.
Like someone said simple solution is the best solution :)
Questions:
1.What do you think about this smart homes ?
2.What are advantages or disadvantages of that home ?
3.Do you think that smart home will be more popular ?
4.Do you want to live in that kind of home??
1. I think that era of smart homes is coming similarly to era of smart cars, smart phones etc. Electronics stays cheaper and using wireless networks doesn’t require putting a few kilometers of cords during building houses. I think that possibility for adding intelligence to our already built houses by every owner is a key for smart houses’ future.
ReplyDelete2. I see a lot of advantages where smart homes replace our activities like switching lights when we go to bathroom at night (or go to a fridge), opening and closing windows.
I also see disadvantages. They are connected with a costs – smart homes should have an economic justification - and with fear of giving control over part of our life for electronic equipment. Today a lot of people (including me) have a problem during turning off electricity. I'm afraid that a private power station will be needed for living in a completely smart home.
3. Popularity of smart homes seems to be a matter of time. I think that our homes are more smarter than a few years ago, and one day they will become quite smart.
4. I would like to probe living in smart home as showed on video.
I don’t think that I will order complete set of equipment for making my home smart at once. But I hope that I will introduce intelligence to my home step by step – starting from remote controlling of my gate and finishing on central computer which I will program as I will want.
You do not need to but a central computer. You can have one in cloud :) and you only need reliable Internet link (probably a redundant one would do).
DeleteAdditional thoughts: the smart solutions should be smart enough to not block anything in case of a power failure, so you cold do thins manually (although there are situations that "block by default" is mandatory, like door lock :)).
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ReplyDeleteSome of the presented features seem nice and useful, and could probably be widely applied if available at a reasonable price. I am however a little bit concerned about relying on electronic devices too much. It always makes me wonder, how reliable they really are. For sure such solutions need to be carefully designed (especially in case of power outage mentioned by Grzegorz). They say that the solution is safe - however I need to be sure, what happens to my house when power failure occurs. Is it permanently opened or permanently closed then? The other thing that came into my mind was fixing things at home. I remember, like (long time ago in a galaxy far away ;) ) my dad used to repair most of things in his car himself, telling stories about "good old times", when you could fix many issues with easily available tools and "improvised" parts you could find in most of the households. Nowadays cars are becoming more sophisticated, but some things really need to be handled by professionals (mostly because they have appropriate tools and knowledge of the internal design of the system controlling the vehicle). Now imagine, that you have to call a specialist, because you can't open your fridge... (note, that it is very fancy and expensive so breaking it is not an option ;) ).
ReplyDeleteYeah, I totally agree with you. Not being albe to open your fridge sounds terrible :) But for some it could be a good way to loose some weight! The point that your dad made also gets to me as I also like to fix and improve stuff by myself.
DeleteI agree regarding the problem with fixing things by ourselves. There should always be an option to improvise. Additional issue is that producers of smart things usually add unnecessary complexity to things they produce just to be sure you will call them for service in case of problems.
DeleteI agree with Grzegorz and you that it need to be done carfare and responsible step by step and I think that not every thing should be automated for example I don't imagine that situation when I can't open my fridge because it is broken :) Many thing should be automated because then it will be nice and easier to life but not everything :)
ReplyDeleteAnd I think that that house will be more cheaper when they become more popular like it was with other thing for example some times a go computers were much more expensive than now when they are more popular and almost everyone has it own :)
I think that such solutions can also be designed to make things easier for elderly or phisically impaired people (when they are affordable)
DeleteI think that there is a market niche for cheap ,reliable, thought out smart house solutions. A world wide company with cheap prices can gain a big market share.
DeleteThe idea of having a "smart house" which you could manage with your phone seems like a good one. All of the additional benefits of being albe to track your water and electicity usage and messing around with the lighting in rooms also seems fun. But what about if you got a virus (or some malfunction) and suddenly all of your lights and electric devices that are managed by the central system switch on in the middle of the night and you could not turn them off?
ReplyDeleteSo all in all, I'm not entirely convinced about implementing such solutions in my four corners. And probably the cost of deploying such technology in a small house would be as expensive as the house itself...
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DeleteWhat I got out of the video is that controlling light seems to be in huge demand (further confusing our natural day-night cycle). Or maybe the lighting would help mimic natural conditions, hard to tell. I like the energy saving aspect of it all, of course with all the sensors and electric motors there must be some overhead. I'd only equip my home with technology that is easily replaceable and upgradable, inexpensive and seamless (without having to reconfigure it all the time). As it is, looks like we're not there yet.
ReplyDeleteImagine the constant stream of software/driver updates for all? the devices, and all the bugs from coding.
ReplyDeleteImagine, how cool it would be, to control everything from your bed, to never have to write out a grocery list ever again, or make any other choices in your life. Just lie in your bed, doing nothing but eating the food that you no longer have to pick out.
Hopefully in the future everything will be using? efficient means of power, so 100% renewable energy, wind, hydro, solar, geothermal etc....so no cost no fuss
All equipments but also main electricity, gas, heat, water, will be good to see and control it via remote computer.
Is good idea about a technological home
Basically, a house with nothing on the side because this house wants to state, emphatically, I want a house in the woods.
Generally I like this idea but it's good to know side effects of it. I already started adding some "smart devices" at my home. Maybe "smart" is to big word for this but without a doubt it's something close to control/automation.
ReplyDeleteI'm using WiFi camera to observe my flat when I'm not around. In my opinion it's a great opportunity to see that everything is alright especially when you are far away but it also has some disadvantages. First concerns technical problems. When you cannot connect to your camera it raises suspicion that something wrong is going on and you will start to worry about it immediately. Second problem is more about your mental health - instead of being relaxed you still think about checking video transmission...
Another element I added to automate my home environment is a remote controler with timer to turn on/off lights. It's really good if you want to use many lamps which have switches in hard to operate places (for example behind the bed or built into furnitures). And it's not about being lazy but rather to make everyday life easier. Time control additionally helps to save energy. I think that adding ability to control it by internet is really interesting option which I have to consider.
I am really optimistic about the idea of smart homes. There is a lot of advantages of this system, just imagine that you can put something in the oven and turn ot of when you are not at home. There were so many situation when I had to go back home because I left something on. The only disadvantage is that as with all automatic systems there is always possibility that an error can occur.
ReplyDeleteI also think that it is a matter of time when this would be as common as smart phones and other automatic stuff around us. I would certainly get one for myself!
The problem with I see with smart homes is not the technology but real estate industry and luck of time in planning. Some simple solutions like automatically switch of the light inn all house or remote control of blinds are from technological point of view really simple and extremely useful but problem is that you have to know that you would like to have this features on really beginning. Ins not impotent how modern wireless communication technology you choose but all this things need power supply so you have to put wires in proper places before you finish the walls. So in most cases you or developer who is going to sell you your real estate need to know it. The biggest problem is that from developer point of view this is not something with really increase value of the flat or house because typical customers looks at different factors like how many square maters real estate have or with material was used and features like “smartness” are on the end of the list. On the other hand people who supervise process of contraction of their own houses do not have a time to think about such details. Is really rare that someone now where to put network or audio cables during process of construction and there are plenty of other much more important decisions like where to put pie for washing machine or how many power sockets you need in every room. I see plenty of handy and simple solutions which can be apply in almost every house like remote control of blinds, light, automated irrigation of plants on the windowsill, turning off the iron via internet when you forgot to switch it off or simple controlling air-condition when you know that you are not going home and is just a waste of money. Technology is ready and I believe that all students in this course can implement this features in few weeks but problem is somewhere in the middle.
ReplyDeleteJust another think but I believe is according to the topic. Have you ever think why our mobile phones are much “smarter” then our cars (have customable apps, GPS and cameras and so on). Our cars are much “smarter” then our homes (have automated windows and remote lock) while phone cost 10 times less then cars and cars 10 times less then homes.
DeleteNice point regarding the price gradation. Anyway the cheaper the thing is the more likely it is that you will replace them often. That is the point - the time you change that think is the time to introduce new "smart" extensions not present in the previous one you just getting rid off.
DeleteIf we would change houses with the same frequency as we do with mobiles then I bet our houses would be quite smart already :).
Smart homes is something that should enter our environment quite long time ago. They require more investment but in general the return is greater than the prior investment.
ReplyDeleteThe key point is that smart houses are simple ideas that can save time required for some repetitive tasks.
Simple sensors can easily check statuses of various factors like light, temperature, human/animal presence.
It is a waste for the human kind that smart houses are not common. Having that level of technology and communication we have now, there should be a much bigger percentage of smart houses present.