Nearly 44 years ago a futuristic cartoon called ‘The Jetsons’ premiered, featuring a family living in a space-age apartment with a robot to perform housework, a nuclear-powered knitting machine, a video phone on a big-screen television, a voice-operated washing machine and a seeing-eye vacuum cleaner, among other advanced amenities.
Today, the vision of an automated home with centralised, and truly remote, control is a reality. While we may never have a nuclear-powered knitting machine, much of the other technology dreamed up in `The Jetsons' is either here or just around the corner.
Consider these facts: of the starter homes built in the US in 2005, nearly 50% contained structured wiring, meaning they have a network-ready infrastructure - the backbone of the connected home. For move-up homes, that number grows to nearly 60% and for luxury homes, it exceeds 65%. What is more, US households with networks are expected to grow from about 13 million in 2003 to more than 30 million in 2009.
The so-called 'connected home' ties together appliances, heating and airconditioning, computers, security systems, smoke detectors, lighting, home entertainment devices and more, and lets users control them all via remote control from a telephone, cellphone, over the Internet or at home via wall-mounted keypads or touchscreens, or even portable touchscreens that can be carried throughout the house. A connected home allows all the electronics and systems in a home to work together and gives homeowners access to their home from anywhere on the planet.
A connected home can also be an intelligent home, one that is wired to take care of itself and alert you to any problems, rather than the other way around. Improving safety and security is a prime concern in a connected home.
Imagine a situation where there is a fire. An intelligent house can shut off the HVAC unit to avoid feeding the flames with oxygen. It also might shut off certain large appliances in the house, or even main valves such as the natural gas.
Another more subtle application would be to monitor the presence of devices within the home. Homeowners would certainly like to know if their expensive plasma TV was in the process of being stolen. A connected home could easily generate an alarm the instant a television is unplugged, even if the power is turned off. With appliance theft in the home construction market reaching epidemic proportions, such a system would create a high demand among homebuilders.
The benefits to both homeowners and builders of a connected home are practically limitless. With the right wiring, compatible devices and a little imagination, homes can offer everything from remote security and appliance control, energy cost savings, and 'plug-and-play' computer network and home entertainment functionality.
The return on investment can also be substantial. Intelligent lighting, heating and cooling systems can pay for themselves in just a few years. Experts predict that such smart homes will soon be in high demand, and will sell faster than homes without connected technology. What is more, insurance rates may even be reduced with a smart home.
Structured wiring opens the door
The structured wiring system is truly the nerve centre of a connected home. It intelligently distributes the communication paths for home video, data, networking, telephone and distributed audio. The GE Smart ConnectionCenter is a structured wiring and connectivity solution that manages and distributes broadband, telephone, cable TV and creates an in-home computer network via Ethernet. In addition to the common features of a structured wiring system, the ConnectionCenter allows mounting of home security systems, gateways, audio products and home servers - all in one enclosure.
With a structured wiring system, it is possible to work from home, easily networking printers, scanners and computers. The system even supports multiple incoming phone lines that can be accessed from any room in the house. The ConnectionCenter also provides a network centre that integrates home control.
The Smart ConnectionCenter also enables multi-player gaming, whether it is room-to-room, house-to-house, or with friends and relatives in another state. CD-quality audio and digital video signals are also distributed throughout the home.
The primary benefit of a wired network using the Ethernet protocol developed for computer networks is bandwidth. Ethernet cable can carry as much data as most households will ever need. There is no question that more and more digital data is becoming available for consumer electronics in the home. HDTV may be leading the revolution, but products like VoiP telephones, TIVO, IPod and the revolutionary place-shifting technology that SlingBox demonstrate, are just the tip of the iceberg. The key to being able to make the most of these emerging technologies is the high speed backbone that connects the digital content with the products that display it, such as home theatre systems, distributed audio systems, the television in the den, home offices and family computers.
So what is the story of the connected home? Structured wiring enables the applications that people want, and the services that are delivered to the home. It gives people options.
Today, consumers have choices they never had in the past. In terms of video, they can choose from cable or satellite, and easily integrate security cameras, whether they are at the front door or in the nursery. Telephone services also rely on good distribution throughout the house. But the real driver is digital content delivered via broadband Internet services. People want alternative services like VoIP telephones, digital music services, digital photo services and digital content on command. The structured wiring system provides the ultimate vehicle to distribute these services in the home.
Homebuilders have certainly taken note and responded to these new trends, realising that offering structured wiring generates revenue and sets them apart from their true competition - existing homes that do not have such technology. As research by the Consumer Electronics Association Builder Study 2005 shows, entertainment applications such as distributed audio and home theatre are growing dramatically in the new-home market, particularly in the move-up and luxury markets.
In terms of profitability, structured wiring provides the opportunity to change the sunk costs of telephones and cable runs into a profit centre. All builders must support basic connectivity in a home with a few phone jacks and coax runs to connect video in the house. That is a given, and the builder cannot charge extra for them. But builders can generate a profit by selling homeowners the connectivity they desire - that is not available in an existing home.
As builders' awareness and understanding of structured wiring grows, the way the product is sold is changing as well. Most builders rely on low-voltage contractors to install these products, and many have found that these experts are the best people to promote and explain this technology to the homebuyer.
Many homebuyers are thinking about home offices, home theatres and distributed audio systems, but they plan to purchase them after they move in. Unfortunately, that is too late to put the right wires in the wall. The advantage of wiring up front is that the low-voltage contractors can offer complete solutions to the homebuyer, and in the process of educating the homebuyer, they increase the sales of their products as well as the builders'. At the same time, the homebuyer gets the benefit of a complete solution. Everybody wins.
What about wireless?
By now you are probably asking yourself, what about wireless? Is it not only a matter of time before wireless technology replaces the need for this wired infrastructure? 802.11 in any flavour is a great technology, but anyone who has a wireless network knows that the convenience of mobility comes at a price. Reliability, speed, peripheral support, security and cost of connection are some of the prices you pay for mobility. A laptop is the perfect application, for wireless, and the primary driver for the growth of this technology.
But if you have a home office with a desktop computer, a shared printer, or a TIVO system in your entertainment centre, you will really benefit from dedicated wires in the wall. In addition, remember that wireless does not mean that there are no wires anywhere. You need to connect that wireless access point to something; sometimes you need more than one. Having network connections at the right place in the home is one of the keys to creating a good wireless network. Wireless is the perfect complement to a structured wiring network, but it is not a replacement.
HomePlug products expand possibilities
So, what if you have an existing home, but want to take advantage of connected convenience? Structured wiring certainly makes sense for brand new homes coming on the market, but retrofitting existing homes with such wiring is cost prohibitive. If wireless is not the answer, what is?
There are numerous technologies in the space between wired and wireless. Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HPNA) products uses phone lines to network computers in the home, and the Multimedia Over Coax Alliance (MOCA) is developing standards to transmit audio/video data over a home's existing coaxial cables. The HomePlug Powerline Alliance has a bigger vision to help unify all networking over the powerline. The Alliance started with computer networking, but with the addition of HomePlug AV has expanded to include distribution of digital media to consumer electronics devices in the home. They have modified the technology to allow the distribution of broadband Internet services over the power line - HomePlug BPL - and are in the process of creating a device communication network for low-cost devices in the home. The result will be a complete home network that rivals the performance of dedicated wiring networks.
The big advantage is that the wiring that homeowners (and even renters) need to take advantage of HomePlug products is already in the home. All they need to do is plug in. The first HomePlug 1.0 products were introduced into the market about three years ago. These products initially focused on computer networking applications within the home.
At GE Security, our vision for HomePlug technology is as an enabler for connected home solutions. Our intention is to launch a series of compelling solutions that improve the quality of people's lives. We envision safety and security products that can be simply and economically installed in existing homes to protect families from fire and theft. Energy management solutions will save consumers money, while at the same time protecting our environment. Healthcare monitoring solutions will allow an ageing population to live comfortably and securely in their homes longer. We believe these types of solutions will drive the adoption of this technology to the point of ubiquity, thereby enabling a host of convenience and home automation solutions.
We believe that it is the applications, not the technology, that consumers want. The power of the HomePlug logo will become the guarantee of interoperability, and that will be our focus as we market solutions to consumers.
Back to the future
Anyone shopping for a computer in the mid-'90s may recall being told their new computer should have something called a USB port. Most people knew about serial and parallel ports, but they had never seen or heard of USB ports. Basically, a knowledgeable sales person would warn customers that they would be left behind in the silicon dust if their computers did not have at least one USB port. And they were right. Within a short time, pretty much every computer accessory, from printers and scanners to keyboards and mice, came with a USB connection with the convenience of plug-and-play connectivity.
And so it is with connected homes. Consumers and builders who are aware of this technology are now able to take advantage of everything that is available now or will be offered down the line, from easy computer networking to distributed home entertainment, intelligent security and energy systems that can be controlled and monitored remotely, and much more.
With the infrastructure in place - a high-speed connection to the home, and the ability to remotely monitor and manage systems within the home - the possibilities for additional services grow dramatically. As our population ages, one can predict the ability for home health monitoring, intelligent appliance networks with predictive diagnostics (and, more importantly, the capability to diagnose the defects remotely before a failure occurs). It is only a small jump to include customised and interactive content.
There is really no limit to where connected home technology may take us. All we have to do is be willing to plug in.
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