Category: Technology

According to a recent report by the British government, the Government’s £11bn programme to install energy smart meters in every home by 2020 may be at risk of failure. There have been many setbacks and problems in the plan to make more homes smart, involving the installation of the meters, which take automatic gas and electricity usage readings and send them back to energy companies. The ultimate aim is that this will eliminate estimated billing and encourage households to save on energy costs through monitoring their consumption. “We do not believe that near-universal smart meter roll-out will be achieved by 2020,” said the Energy and Climate Change committee report. However, it does show that the country’s leaders can see the benefit of smart home technology and in fact, those who already have smart meters are already seeing reductions in their energy consumption, with research published last month showing “high satisfaction rates and confidence in the technology.” Chairman of the committee, Tim Yeo, said: “Smart meters could generate more than £17bn in energy savings for the country.”

Confidence in Technology

This confidence is enhanced by another recently published home automation report which shows the global home automation market valued at USD 4.41 billion in 2014, with an estimated growth rate of 26.3% from 2014 to 2020. Modern day home automation solutions use the latest digital technology to provide better performance and efficiency and according to the report, the market is “primarily driven by growing need for effective solutions in various domestic applications such as lighting, safety and security, energy management, entertainment (audio and video) and HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning).” Interestingly, the highest revenue generating segment was safety and security in 2013. Unsurprisingly, North America was the leader in the home automation market in 2014 followed by Europe and Asia Pacific collectively accounting for more than forty percent of the global market revenue share. Experts have said that a rising awareness towards energy conservation and ability to manage energy consumption through automation technologies are the main influences on the market growth of home automation, together with the rise in smartphone-based home automation solutions. Companies like UK-Automation are at the forefront of smart home technology with a range of branded products for safety, security, lighting, HVAC, energy and entertainment. So even if the smart meter scheme is not initiated by the proposed date of 2020 into every home, you can still make significant savings by installing some of the energy and cost saving products that can be found on UK-Automation’s website.

So many home automation products are hitting the marketplace that the question is, how can they be managed and controlled? News from America is that there are many companies vying to become dominant in controlling smart homes. Today’s marketplace incorporates everything you could possibly want for the automated home, with products and services that seem positively futuristic. Washing machines, devices, Internet-connected light bulbs, security cameras, entertainment devices, heating . . . even garage-doors that alert users if left open, devices that slow down when everyone is asleep and lights that come on at the recognition of an opening lock.

This year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-race-to-build-command-centers-for-smart-homes-1420399511 highlighted the need for a smart home control platform, a command centre if you like. And if the Americans are thinking of it, then the UK won’t be too far behind. The glut of smart-home choices is part of the Internet of Things which basically refers to adding computing, sensing capacity and wireless communications to hardware. Because of the sheer amount of products, the demand is there for platforms to control multiple objects.

Mergers and Movers

We can see this happening already, with Apple last June deciding to make future home devices using a platform called HomeKit. The company is attempting to reduce the need for individual apps and hub devices by building features into its iOS software to configure and coordinate multiple wireless gadgets more accessibly and easily. “It becomes a lot less confusing for the consumer,” says Chris Allen, CEO of iDevices LLC, one of multiple companies announcing HomeKit-based products at CES.

“There is nothing worse than 15 different apps for 15 different devices,” says Nate Williams, chief marketing officer of Greenwave Systems.

We can see how companies are thinking using for example, Whirlpool, the cleaning machine company, who joined the smart thermostat company, Nest’s programme which enabling interactions such as spinning its dryers periodically when users are absent. Another UK company, Wink, deveoped last year the ability to command Nest devices to its home app as well as many others as Nest’s app doesn’t control other companies’ devices.

“Every single one of these U.S. retailers and service providers want to have their own offering of a platform,” is the prediction from Jimmy Busby, chief executive of Alabama-based CentraLite Systems Inc., which designs home hardware and software for other companies.

Some companies are already offering tasty titbits: PEQ, a hardware and service provider is on the brink of to merging with a connected vehicle service called Zubie, which would allow subscribers driving away from their homes to have automatic happenings, such as their front doors automatically locking and the heating turned down.

Nest has already announced certain partnership measures, including Dropcam camera recording footage in the event of smoke which could which help in later investigations.

Certain companies are using the Web service IFTTT “If This, Then That.” The example cited is a motion sensor catching someone in the biscuit barrel: “Post a Facebook status message anytime someone reaches for the cookie jar.” Maybe that’s going too far but the sentiment is obvious.

Who will take ultimate control remains to be seen but in the meantime check out UK-Automation’s list of products for a comprehensive insight into what’s new and existing in the smart home market.

See our latest home automation products

Two new innovations were launched a couple of months ago which promise to bring home automation to a new level. Google has announced Nexus Player, an Android TV box (http://www.techradar.com/news/television/nexus-player-release-date-news-and-features-1269424) and Amazon has brought out the Fire TV streaming set-top box.

Nexus Player

So what are they? Let’s start with Nexus Player, Google’s new living room media box. After the failure of Google TV, this product is expected to put the company back in the running. According to the press company, Nexus Player is a home media player for streaming Netflix and playing games on your TV. In appearance it is a small (120x120x 20mm) round device that plugs into the TV via HDMI. What does it do apart from stream and download video and music from the internet and home network. It works by running a brand new TV-optimised version of Android 5.0 (Lollipop) and has 8GB of internal storage, which means a lot of capacity to download games to playing on screen.

Here’s the techie bit: it was built by computer wizards Asus on top of a 1.8GHz quad core Intel Atom chip with a separate graphics chip to power games and HD videos via an Imagination PowerVR Series 6 GPU. An 802.11ac 2×2 (MIMO) chip promises excellent internet connection. Also, it offers a voice search facility to let you search for apps or for stuff on the internet by speaking into the remote control.

It promises instant access to all purchased Google Play content, apps and games and any content you have on your phone can be instantly beamed towards the Nexus Player and your TV using the cast button so you can use your phone as a remote control when watching with compatible apps.

You can also automatically sync games and other media between the Nexus Player and your other Android devices so you don’t have to start from the beginning.

Amazon Fire TV

Amazon Fire TV has a good look with a minimalist matt black remote control and it uses Bluetooth to communicate. The box itself looks like an external hard drive, and sports a quad-core processor, a discreet GPU and 2GB of RAM. Although you can wire it into a central router via Ethernet, it also has two dual-band Wi-Fi antennas.

Its benefits include a voice recognition feature that uses a microphone on the remote, and certain interesting extras, such as viewing photos stored on Amazon Cloud Drive, and playback for Music purchased through its MP3 store. It also has more and better quality gaming options than other Amazon devices. And it provides full-spectrum access to Amazon’s cloud video services, and Amazon Instant and Amazon Prime Video.

The fact is that the major players in the industry are going all out to entice people to buy innovations, and people will. All you have to do is make sure that your home is geared up to accommodate these products and others that will inevitably come along as competitors.

Check out everything you need for cabling and connection at UK-Automation.