For years there have been predictions about just what 21st-century living
would be like. Robots as house help, anyone? Hover cars and holidays on the
moon? Well, only the robot cleaners are anywhere near arriving, but the
“smart home” — technology designed to make home life simpler, more luxurious
and more efficient — certainly has.
Plasma and LCD screens, broadband internet and wireless connectivity have
become mainstream, while technology more often associated with millionaires’
row — remote-controlled gates, CCTV, home cinemas, and the like — is
slipping into ordinary city flats, traditional country piles and suburban
semis. Britain is embracing a Jetsons lifestyle.
So what is smart technology — or rather, what can smart technology do for you?
The answer is many, many things. It is being able to use your (hands-free)
mobile phone while driving home from work to run a bath that will be ready
the second you walk through the door; it is getting up in the morning,
pressing a button next to your bed and having the shower already running —
at the perfect temperature — by the time you reach the bathroom. It is
pressing another button and watching your lights slowly ramp up to a level
you have preset, so there’s no stumbling around a dark house on a bleak,
wintry morning.
Was that the door bell? Check who is outside on your nearest LCD screen, which
has come on automatically to show you. Forget about fumbling in that messy
handbag for your door keys: the lock is activated by your fingerprint or
iris. Scan the bar codes of food going into your high-tech refrigerator
before discarding wrapping — your next shopping list is compiled.
No more dashing for a cuppa during commercial breaks to avoid missing a scene
of your favourite soap: flatscreens in every room mean you won’t miss a
second. Imagine having broadband internet, all your television channels —
digital, Sky and terrestrial — all your films and your entire music
collection in every room. That music is playing from invisible speakers,
buried in the plaster of the walls.
“We’ve had clients who can lie in bed in their attic bedroom and part of the
glass in the roof above them will slide back, so they can look at the stars
or let cool air in on a hot night,” says Robin Courtenay, a director of SMC (www.smc-uk.com),
a London-based smart-technology installer. “The roof will have rain sensors
so that it closes automatically if it rains.”
In the living room of Alan Grosvenor’s luxurious three-bedroom flat in Kent,
smart technology means by pressing only one button he can close the electric
window blinds, slowly dim the lights, lower an 8ft projector screen from the
ceiling and electrically drop a framed picture on the opposite wall to
reveal a projector, transforming the room into a home cinema. Grosvenor
knows exactly how smart technology can make his life easier: he installed
the kit with his business partner, Jason Lawrence; the pair run Sevenoaks
Sound & Vision (01865 241 773, www.ssav.com),
a specialist installation firm.
Christiane Wuillamie’s two-bed mews house in South Kensington also gives a
taste of the future: cabling, installed when she converted the property,
links telephones, computers, a multi-room hi-fi system, the television and
the burglar alarm, allowing her to watch pictures from security cameras on
the television screen. A Sonos sound system sends a different track from
more than 500 albums to speakers in each room.
“Christiane and her family can network their computers and their in-house
music system, and plug in their laptops in any room,” says Jason Vaughan, of
Kensington Home Technology, (020 7731 4272, www.kensingtonhometechnology.com),
who did the work.
So you can have the earth and more. But how exactly do you get it? If you want
the kind of super-duper pad that would stun even James Bond, then you should
turn to a “custom integrator” company that will build you a tailor-made home
network.
The Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (Cedia) has an
online members directory (www.cedia.co.uk
). An installer should provide a complete service: design the system, work
with architects, interior designers and other contractors to project manage
the installation and, crucially, show you how to use it. They should also
provide postinstallation support.
So where do you start? Set aside thoughts of fancy gadgets for a moment: the
bedrock of a smart home is the cabling, hidden in the fabric of your house.
This is connected to easy-to-use control pads, attached to walls much like
light switches: one for each room is best — try Crestron (www.crestron.co.uk)
and AMX (www.amxcontrols.co.uk)
for stylish brushed-chrome versions.
Usually, Cat5, the standard cabling used for data and telephony, should
suffice. Many control pads are compatible with Cat5, but some, such as those
from Crestron and AMX, require specialist power cables to go with them (your
installer will specify), and there is also speaker cabling, high-quality
cables for video signals and HDMI cables to connect your Sky or digital
boxes to your television.
Want to convert your shed into a home office with broadband internet? Then you
will require externally rated Cat5 cables, which will be contained in a pipe
and laid in a trench; normal Cat5 is not designed to withstand exposure to
the elements and will rust.
Once the cabling is installed, you can turn on the radio, play music, control
lights, raise or lower blinds or curtains, crank up heating in winter, cool
the house via air conditiong in summer, take off the swimming pool cover,
activate your spa bath ...
Want to do the run-the-bath-on-the-way-home-from-work trick? Have your
integrator set up your network so you can use your mobile phone or the
internet from any computer, to turn on the taps until the bath is full, and
then cut out.
There are several different ways to construct a system, but by far the most
popular method is to have all of the functions “star wired” back to a
central point in the house, such as a cupboard, where any bulky equipment,
such as amplifiers, is stored. Every function is individually wired, so even
though they are controlled by a single keypad, if any one system shuts down,
it won’t take the entire network with it.
A good place to start looking at what you can do, and how to do it, is the T3
Smart Home Show at Birmingham’s NEC later this month. More than 60 “smart”
companies will be demonstrating the latest in multi-room entertainment;
audiovisual equipment; lighting, communications and security systems;
wireless technology; and intelligent appliances.
So what does a smart home cost? There is no such thing as a typical
installation. It is a bespoke service based on your home’s size and the
technology you install. You can spend as little as £5,000 or hundreds of
thousands of pounds, but installers generally agree that £35,000 will go a
long way towards fully automating a four- to five-bedroom family home.
For that money, you could control lighting and electrics, have an audiovisual
distribution system that will feed music and images to every room in the
house, and a decent cinema room. A high-end installation might include a
multi-home entertainment system giving you access to music, films and
televi-sion from any zone in the house; a wired and wireless data network so
you can have broadband, internet and telephone connections anywhere as well;
and bespoke lighting programmes: press one switch and the lighting dims for
a romantic dinner; press another, and the lights will go out gradually as
you leave the house.
Where smart technology really comes into its own is in improving home
security. This does not just entail CCTV monitoring. Lighting and blinds can
be controlled electronically to create the illusion that people are at home.
“Holiday” settings can monitor your living patterns for two weeks before you
leave, then, while you are away, simulate your usual movements. Forget about
outside flood-lights that come on if an intruder steps on your premises at
night; smart technology will also switch lights on inside the house, as if
the homeowner is getting up to check on things.
All this high-tech kit represents a substantial investment. Will it add value
to your home? Robert Bailey, a high-end, London-based buying agent, says
there is definitely demand for smart homes among his wealthy clients.
“At this stage you can’t say that smart technology would add a certain
percentage to your property,” Bailey says. “But if you take an unmodernised
flat selling at £1,000 per sq ft, on the back of adding smart technology you
might expect to get between £1,300 and £1,500 per sq ft.”
If you want to get smart, but don’t want to blow the budget, install the
correct wires and outlets to “future-proof” your home first and worry about
connecting the gadgets later. The cables can lie in wait under floorboards
and behind your walls until you need them, until you can afford to add
technology, or until new products come on the market.
Today’s nursery, for example, is tomorrow’s home office if the broadband
outlets are already there. There are also off-the-shelf products available
for not much at all, while wireless technology can provide an alternative to
cabling.
One of the dilemmas associated with smart technology is the knotty issue of
how we can have all these timesaving features without damaging the
environment.
“The biggest problem — and the most easy to remedy — is the needless wastage
of energy from devices left in standby mode,” says Jim Hill, editor of T3
Home magazine. In particular, he is keen to encourage the sales of devices
that use minimal amounts of energy when left in standby mode.
Smart technology can also be combined with green technology such as geothermal
heat pumps, photovoltaic cells, solar panels and wind turbines.
Indeed, one of the core ideas behind smart homes — that equipment turns on and
off precisely when you want it — should help to cut down on energy wastage.
“Climate control for the home should improve energy management by ensuring the
home is not overheated,” says Michael Holmes, the editor-in-chief of
Homebuilding & Renovating magazine. It is vital, though, to ensure
savings are not offset by greater use of air conditioning, a massive user of
energy.
Hugh Whalley, business manager of Siemens Smart Home Technology, believes
Britain’s increasingly erratic climate will encourage people to control a
home’s temperature while they are away so that they will be more economical
in energy consumption.
“Using a mobile phone, the capacity to control your home and its boiler to
cope with a sudden cold snap one day, followed by 16C heat the next, will
come into its own,” says Whalley. He believes that in 10 years’ time every
home will have a cabled system that makes it a smart home. Judging by our
appetite for luxury technology, it seems inevitable. But, as for that hover
car, don’t hold your breath.
Additional reporting, Karen Robinson
- Cedia’s consumer guide to the integrated home is released next month
World at their fingertips
Adam Kent’s 7,500sq ft home, outside Solihull in the West Midlands, which he
shares with his girlfriend, Vikki Abrahard, 29, and his three children,
Faye, 11, Isabelle, 9, and Luke, 8, looks like a traditional country pile.
Inside, however, its 28 rooms, including six bedrooms, six bathrooms and three
cinemas, have huge plasma screens and multiple lighting circuits. Films and
music tracks are downloaded onto a hard drive and distributed with radio, TV
and the internet to every room.
“I can start watching a DVD in the cinema room, press pause, go to the
bathroom, watch half-an-hour in the bath, press pause and finish watching in
the bedroom,” says Kent, 43, who runs his own smart technology firm, Install
Automation (0121 200 1031, 08708 550 010, www.installautomation.com).
He spent more than £100,000 “smartening” up his home.
He can also control the property from anywhere in the world, via the internet
or a mobile phone.
“If we’re all eating in the kitchen, one press of a button or click of a
remote can immediately switch off all the other lights,” he says. “So
bedroom lights are not left burning because the kids keep forgetting to
switch them off.”
Lighting moods can be preset; the couple have “romantic”, “reading” and
“chill” levels, for example. A button by the front door automatically
activates the lights the family normally use each evening.
If one of them is coming home to an empty house, they can text ahead to put on
the lights, heating or air-conditioning. Sensors installed in the ceiling
and walls mean that at night, if anyone gets up, dim lights turn on
automatically.
Smart home technology really comes into its own when it comes to home
security, and the set-up at Kent’s home is a good example of how improved it
can be. For a start, there are some 16 CCTV cameras. If the family are
planning a holiday, a setting for lights and curtains monitors their routine
for a fortnight and then mimics it while they are away. Kent is contacted —
anywhere in the world — if the doorbell is pressed, and he can transmit a
voice response, so it sounds as though he’s home.
Kent says his children are better at operating the controls than he is — and
he’s a professional.
“They love it,” he says. “My 11-year-old daughter loves being able to listen
to her music anywhere in the house.” Smart technology means other family
members can listen to what they like as well: more than 2,000 CDs are loaded
onto the music system, and different music can be heard throughout the house
at the same time. “And they all love having friends over to the cinema
rooms,” says their father.
The children’s televisions are controlled by him, so he can determine exactly
how much television — and what programmes — they are allowed to watch.
Dawdling in bed on a school morning is also impossible: a button in the master
bedroom lets him turn on the children’s bedroom lights and radios and open
their curtains — from the comfort of his own bed. Now that really is
parental control.
Get the look
- Three Multi Room 248-Zone Xantech MRC88 multi-room controllers (£4,550 each)
- Ten 6.4V Xantech LCD touch screens (£1,930 each); 12 x standard panels (£208
each); one waterpad, (£425)
- One Samsung IQ tablet PC/controller with automation software (£999)
- One LCD 4 monitor screen in rack, (£995); two AV racks (£750 each)
- Cinema AV receivers: One Yamaha RXV 2700 cinema AV receiver, one Yamaha
1700, one Yamaha AX757 (£450 each)
- TruAudio speakers (£70 a pair)
- One Xmusic Imerge 4 Source music server (£1,360-£3,320)
- One HD distribution Kramer VP88 (£1,699); three SKYSky HDsHDs
- Two Panasonic TH-42PHD8BS screens (£995 each); one Sony KDF-E50 (£800); one
LG 32in LC2D, (£799); three LG 19in screens (£199 each); two Sony 17in
screens (, £299 each)
- Three TileVision bathroom televisions (£1,200 each)
- Security: One Telestial 16-camera DVR CCTV system (£799); nine cameras, (£80-£900
each)
- OtherEpson TW500 Projecter (£795)
- Nevo SL and MX3000 remote controls,Telestial Vista Media Server/Clients,
Sony XL1B 200 DVD changer, (£999)
- Lighting: Helvar Imagine lighting system with 152 circuits (from £60 a
circuit)
Be inspired
We have teamed up with the organisers of the T3 Smart Home Show at the
National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, to offer two full-price tickets to
the show for the price of one. Call the ticket hotline on 0870 730 0964,
quote The Sunday Times when booking, and two people can visit for £12 (the
normal individual entry price at the door is £12 per person). The show will
be open daily from 10am to 5pm on March 22-25. Visitors will also gain free
access to the co-located National Homebuilding & Renovating Show
