The future of technology means that we will be living in an increasingly ‘intelligent’ home environment or ‘smart home’ that operates without the need for human intervention.
Simon Mathieson, Director at national home technology expert company Finite Solutions, talks through the latest innovations that are starting to revolutionise the way we live our lives.
In the very near future as you walk through your home, a small device worn around the wrist will authenticate your identity by pairing itself to your specific heartbeat, allowing your home to automatically adjust the lighting, room temperature and even play custom music based on personalised preferences and pre-configured profiles.
A typical family home could include up to 500 connected devices by 2022. According to world leading IT research company, Gartner, a wide range of domestic appliances will become smart in the sense of intelligent sensing with the ability to communicate and control the environment wirelessly. There will be no passwords, the future will be at biometric authentication with a strong protocol behind it.
Personalised Control
Using Biometrics, the smart home of the future will decide on when to wake you up based on your schedule and sleep quality and offer what to eat to promote a healthier diet. Sensors in the house will use fingerprints, body temperatures and heartbeat rhythms to differentiate between the family members and adapt to their preferences automatically. Examples could include adjusting the water temperature in the shower, adjusting the lighting dim or playing custom music to a person’s liking.
Sleep Number SleepIQ now offers beds that come with monitoring technology integrated. They'll tell you how long you were down, how much you moved, the depth of your slumber, your heart rate and breathing patterns. On top of that, you can also find out which mattress settings on this connected cot best suit your body type and needs.
Coming soon to the bathroom, we will have showers that recognise your body mass and automatically switch to your favourite temperatures at key points. Also a new Japanese invention under development is a toilet that can assess your waste to alert when there is a problem and even book a doctor’s appointment!
For the living room Panasonic's TV range have added face recognition through their embedded cameras. Once they know who you are, these TV’s use the Life+ Screen software inside to bring up all the content and settings that it knows you like. Once it can integrate your mood according to a wristband's reading of your biometrics then it will switch on an appropriate programme.
Energy Efficient
One of the biggest benefits of a smart home is the energy saving technologies available. The typical future house will rely on self-generated electricity and intelligently go off-grid when necessary to self-sustain.
Lutron is one of the forthcoming companies offering smart lighting solutions. With the help of smart dimming and automated controls on your phone, tablet or even smartwatch, Lutron aims at reducing the energy costs of lighting in your home. By defining different mood lighting settings, you can also adapt the lighting in your home to your mood or different entertainment activities.
Nest has been one of the dominating companies in the smart home industry with its smart thermostat. By automatically adapting the heating elements to your lifestyle, Nest aims at minimising the energy consumption for heating your home. Automation features expands on the functionality of Nest; so for instance, you can set up your heating to be triggered just before you wake up in the morning or when you leave work for home.
For the garden, The GreenIQ Smart Hub can be controlled through WiFi devices and can control your watering schedule, sprinklers, and outdoor lighting through a couple of buttons. It can actively respond to changing weather conditions in your local area over a period of time, monitoring the nearest weather station and responding accordingly
Safe and Secure
As more smart systems are integrated into a property’s overall functionality they can also be harnessed to give greater protection and security.
A perfect example of enhanced security is a home containing intelligent lighting and audiovisual as well as CCTV systems. These systems can work even harder by integrating with a robust perimeter heat detection system that provides a five to 10 meter barrier around any home with early warning of any intruders in the grounds before they even get to the house. If the perimeter system is breached whilst you are at home this smart control system can turn on all selected TV screens in the house, mute the music system and show the CCTV camera nearest the point where the perimeter has been breached. It will also turn on external security lighting and sound an audible alarm giving families time to move to a safe area and call the police before anyone enters the home.
When the home is not occupied the perimeter system automatically arms and alerts of any intruders in the grounds via text and email. It also controls external security lights after dark and uniquely controls internal lighting turning on the master bedroom lights, then hallway lights, then kitchen lights to give the impression that occupiers are at home and coming to investigate the security breach. This smart system is also integrated into a fire alarm so that all internal lights are automatically switched on to highlight a path to safety.
Ultimately, technology can be extremely practical and when used to its full potential becomes vastly more cost effective and beneficial to almost all family needs.