Smart House 1

Smart House
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Smart House
Introduction
Automated home features and simple appliances have been in use for some time now.
This have entailed operations like coffee preparation in the morning or even control of the
lighting system. However, with the advanced technology the concept of home automation
have been widened so as to now accommodate the whole of home set up. Therefore, this
would mean that one could be able to control both internal operations such as fridges, air
conditioners and temperature detectors and also external operations such as gate closures, fire
alarms and security detectors. With this, the whole of home set up operating systems would
be integrated in a PC environment via programming. From just a smart device such as a
phone, tablet or laptop one would then control any of these activities and also get informed of
all that is taking place without the necessity of his or her presence in person. This whole
concept constitutes what is called a smart home (Salman, Easterbrook, Sabie, & Abate 2016).
A research by the Tafeta Program of Research has indicated the high belief and urge
that people hold towards the usage of this concept. This study based its arguments on the
facts that the number of aged in the community is heightening every now and then and
therefore such a development would see the old have their daily routine well carried out on a
stand-alone basis without any sort of disturbance to others (CMHC 2016).
Smart house concept leads to the creation of a centralized point from which all the
operations gets ignited while in communication with one another. A house controller is then
formed which either can be in custody of the owner from various connected devices within
the home environs such as computers or touch screen panel or else be under external service
givers such as security companies. In general, the whole concept of smart house constitutes of
three main entities.
 Equipment, devices and other several house appliances connected with detecting
gadgets such as cameras, thermometers, timers and other sets of sensors.
 Several sets of operating systems which might entail a software created program such
as a website form or an application (App) which is used to program, control and also
monitor all these devices, equipment and appliances within the house.
 A wireless link or rather interface which allows the contact between the automated
house operating systems and the house owner in order to be able to carry out remote
control at any time and from any place.
The figure below indicates a house set up whose operations can be automated to make it a
smart house.
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A house under automated systems (smart house)

Overview
Following its connection to several benefits among them improved security, enhanced
personal independence, improved water and also energy systems effectiveness, enhanced
personal satisfaction and cost effectiveness, the usage of smart houses has been gaining
market in recent times. From statistics and finding of RnR Market Research on the usage of
smart houses in America, it was found out that the usage of this automated home set ups will
have increased by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 17.62% by the year
2020. This will then therefore regenerate to an increased profit gain by about $22.4 billion
(Market watch 2014). In return, this has seen many house dealing corporation and
organizations as the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) turn their
emphasis and concentration towards investments in establishment of smart houses.

Smart House progress within the IT sector

Of late smart house innovation has come to be one of the outstanding features within
the IT sector. This has been contributed by its many advantages in terms of improving the
relationship between human being and his surrounding environment at home. These
advantages do range from the aspect of personal convinces to security and also other services
such as water and energy.

Benefits of smart house

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Automated home system enables the detection of any security or safety alert and in
turn informs the owner or gets to counteract through a malfunction such as the closure of the
door. Detectors on motions which do sense on any sort of movement round the house
compound and thereafter get to alert the residents of a security threat to have them react
accordingly. This informing alert can also be channelled to the service delivery company
which at this instance is the security company. Monitoring cameras ensures that any kind of
activity around the house area is keenly captured and get the owners monitor it later on in
case of any unexpected occurrence that might have happened to take place in their absence.
Smoke and fire alarms which activates a call for assistance, lightning to help the residents out
and also ceiling fans are turned off to prevent spread of the fire. Water detectors, wind
detectors and also bed shakers are also critical security features which sees to it that residents
of the given smart house enjoy an enhanced security and safety conditions (Hargreaves &
Wilson 2017).
Improved water and energy efficiency in a smart house ensures that the usage of both
water and energy sources are well regulated to both save on cost or any other adverse effect.
Some of the automated features includes controlled windows which would react to both
sunlight and airflow levels and impact even the behaviour of air conditioners (Louis, Calo,
Leiviskä, & Pongrácz 2015). Air conditioners and also temperature regulators gets to operate
in accordance to the availability of people at home. Some other features which depends on
this are the washing machines, water softener and irrigation control system on sprinklers.
Personal convenience is another enhanced factor when using a smart house. All the
automated operations gets aliened to meet resident’s preference. Some of the features entails
lightning system where lights gets to go on while the owner gets in and go off at the time of
going to bed. Automated bathroom warming more so around the winter season in accordance
with the alarm. Also the operation of kitchen appliances such as cookers and smart stoves
gets automated inline to the owners’ kitchen time. Entertainment equipment can also be
controlled from any part of the house either via remote or voice control. In addition, door
locks which either opens or closes depending on whether the owner is getting in or out
respectively.
Personal independency has also improved through the use of smart house. Various
systems keeps the owner informed of all that is taking place around the house such as
screening of the visitors before their entry and also voice messages from appliances such as
fridges in case of deficiency of some items in the house. Normal routine practices such as
flashing of toilets, tilting of beds and switching of bed lights after waking up are just but
examples. The presence of lost items locaters and automatic switch off of some devices after
a long period of inactivity are other added features. This has ensured that the aged, sick and
also the disabled lead a very normal life with the ability to have their routine move on as
usual.

Arguments
The two main desirable characteristics of a smart house from the advantages stated
above is improved security and also sustainable and effective energy consumption. According
to Environmental Protection Agency in USA, if well installed programmable thermostats can
lower the amount of utilized resources to as low as by 10% to 30% (Malinick, Wilairat,
Holmes, & Perry 2012). These findings do correlate with the reported statistics from Nest
Company, a thermostat producing company which outlines that based on the number and size
of family, thermostat cut down energy consumption by about 14% to 26% (Hernandez, Arias,
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Buentello, & Jin 2014). Auto-schedule mode allows the system be updated on the various
activities expected to take place as per a given time and therefore there is lowered
temperatures within the house when the owner is not around and the temperatures starts to
rise so as to warm the room when he or she is about to return (Yang & Newman 2012). This
effects on enhanced energy preservation. With advanced modifications, smart house
establishers seeks to create more energy conservation techniques by utilization of other
sources of energy like wind and solar energy. With this, and basing our arguments on the
facts that energy stands as one of the key limiting factors in the society today and also
reduction and exhaustion of the fossil fuels then it makes smart house to still remain
outstanding among the IT recent innovations.
Security refers to a very wide and broad scope of activities. It is the most important
aspect as per every person’s life. Its coverage entails all the personal securical aspects such
as personal data exposure, fire instances, data loss, water leakages, theft cases and gas
leakage cases. From a study carried out by I control concerning the security aspect of smart
house with 932 respondents, it was found out that 85% of them claimed of security as their
main point of preference in relation to smart houses. A further research, revealed that 67%
claimed of their family security as the main point f consideration in analysing the outstanding
nature of smart house technology. To bring out the full scope of security enhancement, smart
house needs to display detectors in terms of gas leakages, fire outbreaks, anti-theft systems
and also advanced children care aspects.

Smart house situation in recent years

As per now, developments in other various new products to enhance on a well-
coordinated and advanced automated home system are in place. It is then believed that by the
year 2020 there will be about 37 billion new smart products and also 75 million smart house
systems installed throughout the world. This is being geared by a strong public interest in
effecting the life of the aged seniors and also those with disabilities through efficient and
convenience lighting, security and other critical systems.
However, as now the whole vision of having full installation of a smart house is not
fully yet. But rather various companies and parties with impact in the sector are on the look to
coming up with various systems and software that would see these dream come true. British
Gas is one of the examples which is utilizing the data collected from various homesteads to
advertise and market its MyEnergy app which enlightens users on individual information
concerning energy use and also BoilerIQ to deliver both maintenance and monitoring boiler
services. Vivint Smart home is another firm that has utilized the data to put forwards ideas on
the various possible areas for automation such as door locks (Leuschner 2017).
Smart products are costing around $100 and $300 and their installation simply
involves plugging into an electrical outlet. On the other hand the full automated smart house
system costs relatively $5,000 and its installation requires an expert installer from a reputable
installation firm (Kodali & Mahesh 2017). To ensure friendly and ease working with these
systems, a proper training should be carried out on all the users to not only familiarize
themselves with the system but also note the various points of precaution. It will also help in
knowing the available options in instances of power failure and also be able to realize and
identify the variety of personal information that might be at risk.
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Conclusion and Recommendations

The issue of smart houses sounds so great. Unfortunately a lot remains to be done in
order to see this vision come true. This is because as per now there are many obstacles along
the way which has hindered its full implementation. Lack of communication among devices
is one of the obstacle due to lack of a common protocol and standard. Another issue comes
things to do with personal data security where a lot of questioning pertaining personal data
exposure exist. In addition, consumers are less concerned with issues pertaining energy
consumption thus making them less convinced on a need to cut down on such costs.
In spite of all there still remains a lot of hope in having this dream come true. Media
should be on the lead to enlighten the public on such upcoming advancements so as to
increase their interest and curious to dig more about it. Government should also give lots of
support to companies and organization in the field so as to create room for advanced
researches which will fasten the actualization of the full system automation. Companies and
corporate in the housing sector CMHC should fully uphold the move towards smart house if
they are to make real revenue generations and in return offer an appealing, secure and cost
saving houses (Bierhoff et.al 2007).
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References
CMHC. (2016, September 23). Smart Technologies in Affordable Seniors Housing (CMHC
Research Highlight) [Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://tafetabri.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/smart-technologies-in-affordable-seniors-
housing-cmhc-research-highlight/
Hargreaves, T., & Wilson, C. (2017). Perceived Benefits and Risks of Smart Home
Technologies. Human–Computer Interaction Series, 35-53. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-
68018-7_3
Kodali, R. K., & Mahesh, K. S. (2017). Low cost implementation of smart home automation.
2017 International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and
Informatics (ICACCI). doi:10.1109/icacci.2017.8125883
Leuschner, P. (2017, November 21). Are we there yet? Current state of the smart home
market [Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/opinion/are-we-there-yet-current-state-of-
the-smart-home-market/
Louis, J., Calo, A., Leiviskä, K., & Pongrácz, E. (2015). Environmental Impacts and Benefits
of Smart Home Automation: Life Cycle Assessment of Home Energy Management
System. IFAC-PapersOnLine, 48(1), 880-885. doi:10.1016/j.ifacol.2015.05.158
Salman, M., Easterbrook, S., Sabie, S., & Abate, J. (2016). Sustainable and Smart:
Rethinking What a Smart Home is. Proceedings of ICT for Sustainability 2016.
doi:10.2991/ict4s-16.2016.22

Bierhoff, I., et al., (2007). Smart home environment. In Towards an inclusive future.
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Hernandez, G., Arias, O., Buentello, D. & Jin, Y. (2014). Smart Nest thermostat: A smart spy
in your home. Retrieved from http://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-14/materials/us-14-
Jin-Smart-Nest-Thermostat-A-Smart-Spy-In-Your-Home-WP.pdf
Icontrol Networks. (N.d.). 2014 State of the smart home. Retrieved from
http://www.icontrol.com/insights/2014-state-smart-home/
Malinick, T., Wilairat, N., Holmes, J., & Perry, L. (2012). Destined to disappoint:
Programmable thermostat savings are only as good as the assumptions about their
operating characteristics. 2012 ACEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in
Buildings. Retrieved from
http://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2012/data/papers/0193-000237.pdf
Marketwatch. (2014). Smart Homes Market 2020 Forecasts: Americas, APAC & Europe
Analysis. Retrieved from http://www.marketwatch.com/story/smart-homes-market-
2020-forecasts-americas-apac-europe-analysis-2014-06-05
Yang, R., & Newman, M. (2012). Living with an intelligent thermostat: Advanced control for
heating and cooling systems. Retrieved from
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rayang/links/NestStudy_RayoungYang.pdf