A Microsoft engineer, Ramaprasanna Chellamuthu in Bangalore, no longer lives alone at home.

That's because he built himself a buddy, an automated home.

As a hobby, Chellamuthu equipped his house with a variety of robotics, augmented reality, and speech and image recognition devices. He calls his project "buddyHome."

The house wakes him up in the morning and shows his calendar on a computer. It projects a TV news show on the wall. An automated stirrer cooks his instant noodles on the stove. While watching a televised cricket game, the house suggests to buy tickets and asks for a credit card. (Spouses all paying attention here?)

The house watches what he eats and warns "You are eating a high fat diet." (Spouses can turn off now.) And when his morning alarm clock rings, and he can't get out of bed, a device throws water on his face. (Spouses, you were supposed to turn off.)

What people build for themselve tells you a lot about what they really want. For years the PC makers ignored the custom builders and their variety of cases, colours and imagination. Instead they tried to shovel black and beige boxes. Look where we are today, where consumer IT is a fashion business.

Go Project "buddyHome"

Lutron’s newly launched fully scalable Energy Suite can control light levels and usage across multiple floors, whole buildings and entire campuses throughout corporate, industrial and public sector facilities.

Some of the products in the Energy Suite shown at ISE included Lutron’s new Green Glance, Radio Powr Savr and Rania Wireless RF Switch, the GRAFIK Eye QS Wireless (multi-zone control unit) and Lutron’s Energi Savr Node QS.

A display software package, Green Glance provides real-time and historic reporting on energy savings within a building. Green Glance can educate as well as motivate employees to be energy efficient and socially responsible. On top of this, businesses can use Green Glance to display other environmentally efficient facts about their buildings such as details on waste reduction programs or water efficiency systems.

Lutron’s new Radio Powr Savr and Rania Wireless RF Switch are an innovative, wireless sensor and switch designed to automatically turn the lights off when a space such as a conference room, small office, staffroom, classroom or cloakroom is unoccupied.

GRAFIK Eye QS Wireless is a preset light and shade control system for the easy adjustment of lights and shades in any commercial space.

Lutron’s Energi Savr Node QS controls light by connecting occupancy sensors, daylight sensors and wall-stations to DALI (digitally addressable light interface) ballasts. Additional Energi Savr Node QS modules can be linked together to allow integrated control of several floors. The system is totally scalable as it can be linked to Lutron’s Quantum solution for whole-building light management. In addition, installation and commissioning are simple thanks to its Apple iPhone and iPod Touch application.

Go Lutron Energy Suite

The ZigBee Alliance, that global ecosystem of companies creating wireless solutions for use in energy management, commercial and consumer applications, announces the certification of 17 devices from 10 manufacturers using ZigBee Home Automation--plus enhancements to the public application profile.

The tech standard offering control for home appliances, lighting, environment, energy use, and security, ZigBee Home Automation provides a path to direct interoperability with other ZigBee public application profiles, including the industry-leading ZigBee Smart Energy.

ZigBee Home Automation now features new security mechanisms and support for doorbells and mechanized window shades. The standard features control of HVAC systems, power outlets, motorized devices, security and other devices. Product manufacturers will benefit from this standardized approach that makes devices reliable, affordable, easy-to-install and operate. Products using ZigBee Home Automation are ideal for new construction, do-it-yourself and retrofit markets.

From Control4's Home Controller HC-300 to the Jetlun Gateway (a controller that collects, stores and displays real-time energy consumption info) to Netgear's ZEB102 ZigBee Bridge (monitors and controls energy devices and in-home appliances over the Internet) to SerComm's NA401 Home Automation Gateway, energy is becoming the residential industry's most "heated" topic...

Go The ZigBee 14

Nokia Comes Home with Control Center

Available towards the end of 2009, Nokia will launch a Home Control Center that can be controlled through a unified user interface via (of course!) mobile phone and web.

The heart of the solution is the Nokia Home Control Center. It is a technology-independent open Linux-based platform with support for the most common smart home technologies (including Z-Wave and others), as well as enabling the incorporation of support for proprietary technologies. This makes it an ideal platform for third parties to create new solutions and applications for a smart home that can be controlled with a mobile phone.

The two most important control nodes in the solution are a mobile phone and a web browser. A simple unified interface makes controlling all home solutions easy.

Back-end servers link a mobile phone and the Nokia Home Control Center.They also provide automatic updating and upgrading of the Nokia Home Control Center.

Third parties will be able to develop their own solutions and services on top of the platform as Nokia has launched a partner programme around five key application areas: security, energy efficiency, wellness, construction, real estate, and smart home solutions.

Go Nokia Home Control Center

www.nokia.com/smarthome

When your front door locks behind you, the doubts begin to creep in….did you turn the TV off? Is the iron still on?

At CeBIT, digitalSTROM.org presents a new technology to end this post-partem stress…a technology that provides greater security and lower energy consumption.

A small chip, smaller than a fingernail, connects all the electrical devices via the existing electricity network so they can be be controlled with traditional switches. When leaving the house a "master off switch" (can be placed on any number of power sockets) allows the whole house to be placed in standby mode.

In theory, each individual electrical device can be equipped with a digitalSTROM-Chip. The system also measures energy consumption right down to individual appliance level. A simple traffic light system or analysis on a computer shows if energy consumption is above average. This means that a faulty refrigerator seal can be detected as rapidly as a dripping tap.

Go DigitalStrom

Home Automation System to 2.8 Million in 2011

Largely undeterred by current negative economic conditions, vendors of home automation will ship nearly 2.8 million systems in 2011, says ABI Research.

Only one of the four segments of this market –luxury systems – will be significantly impacted by the recession, according to senior analyst Sam Lucero. “The luxury home automation market for systems costing more than $50,000 is relatively mature, so it will feel the greatest impact from the recession. Two other segments – standards-based mainstream home automation systems and home automation as a service - are so new and have so much room for growth that they should expand rapidly starting in 2010 no matter the progress of the wider economic recovery. Likewise, the final segment – DIY home automation – is tied to a certain extent to these other newer segments and should also see healthy growth.”

New standards-based wireless technologies (ZigBee, Z-Wave, etc) inspire many mainstream home automation installations in the $10-15,000 range with prices falling fast. This segment is further driven by the growing availability of peripheral components that are available not only from the vendors themselves but through retail outlets.

Go ABI on Home Automation