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New software merges devices and technology, as demonstrated at Next Gen Home
(Ventura County Star (CA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Jan. 10--LAS VEGAS -- It was a busy day at the Next Gen Home, a futuristic set featuring a cast of tech-savvy characters.
Mom was online in the kitchen, pulling up recipes and checking notes from her children. She hit the "goodbye" button on a wall screen when she left, triggering the lights to turn off, shades to lower and music to shut off.
Elsewhere, her son played Xbox 360 games and showed off a TV show on his Zune.
Dad demonstrated how a remote controls the house lights and temperature in the family's vacation home in Florida.
And grandma adjusted the angle of her widescreen television with a touch of a button, as well as played music from her collection while watching a photo slide show on TV.
Exceptional Innovation of Ohio presented Lifeware software Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show to provide a glimpse of how devices and technology can be integrated in a home. While the company has built homes at the giant trade show in the past, this is the first year that actors from the Walt Disney Co. were used to highlight advances.
"We've learned that it's really so much more than a product sale or a product feature," said Mike Seamons, marketing vice president for Exceptional Innovation, which developed Lifeware. "It's a lifestyle. Lifeware is about all the things in your house connected and how that affects your day-to-day lifestyle."
Home automation has come into its own in recent years.
Now, software, such as Lifeware, can better communicate with electronics and appliances, making controlling and programming a home easier than ever. It all comes down to a point where people have to do less to adjust things to their needs, such as programming the lights to go off at the same time that the security system is activated at night.
Exceptional Innovation has joined with Best Buy and Hewlett Packard to create ConnectedLife.Home, a digital home system for consumers. The system can be retrofitted to an existing home or installed in a new home.
The companies tested the system in 150 new homes in Sacramento before rolling it out.
The $15,000 package includes installation and training on the system, which controls security, lighting, heating, air conditioning and home entertainment.
An HP Digital Entertainment Center is connected to a television to control the home system. The package includes an Xbox 360 and a network linked to a thermostat, two Panasonic surveillance cameras and other devices.
Lifeware also has partnered with LG to incorporate more appliances in the home, such as washers and dryers. For example, a signal is sent from a washer to the television screen when a cycle is done.
Seamons said the television is evolving to become the "dashboard of the digital home." People are comfortable interacting with icons on their televisions to control what is going on.
People who might not have considered such a system before might be more inclined to take the leap as home automation becomes simpler to use, he said.
By 2010, about 30 million U.S. homes are expected to have a connected home entertainment network.
A fully connected digital home that creates communication between two or more of a home's systems, such as security, lights, speakers or air conditioning, is still a rarity, according to Parks Associates.
The research company notes that there are significant growth opportunities in the digital home.
Data networks, which include Internet, telephone over broadband lines and home wireless networks, have grown from 2.5 million U.S. households in 1998 to more than 20 million in 2006.
The use of music and video from the Internet and the trend to have more consumer electronics at home connected to the Internet are also driving how homes are changing. The latest generation of gaming consoles have some online capability.
Parks Associates sees these two trends going toward a "connected home entertainment ecosystem."
In such a system, a PC would collect and disseminate information to gaming consoles, televisions, digital video recorders and stereo systems. Other peripheral products such as smart cell phones would have their own wireless connections online, but also could communicate with the home network.
The goal is to keep making more parts of the home connected, Seamons said.
Right now, Lifeware can connect 147 different products, but that number needs to grow to 1,000, he said.
"It's not about sitting in front of a television with a remote control and changing the lights," he said. "It's more about the personalization that happens when all the things in my house have interaction."
There is potential for an even more seamless experience.
Already, some high-end cars will open their doors and adjust the seat and mirrors for a person with the appropriate key in their pocket.
Seamons said that same technology could come into a home, so stored settings for lights, music and temperature come on as residents enter.
"There's a lot to gain in the house becoming that kind of environment," he said.
To see more of the Ventura County Star, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.venturacountystar.com.
Copyright (c) 2007, Ventura County Star, Calif.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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