You punch a smart card at the main entrance of your campus, and guess what happens in your home. The electric kettle switches on, and the AC starts chilling the air in the living room. As you take left towards the apartment, the bathtub oodles with soap bubbles and the Hi-Fi media center starts flipping through your favorite playlist. You step on to the welcome mattress outside your home and the fingerprint scanner identifies you and the door opens gently and John Denver welcomes you home with his famous number, “Country roads take me home”. Just that the roads of the country lead you to a super connected home.
Welcome to the world of smart homes and cities. While digital homes are already here, smart cities are not too far away. In India, Dimension Digital Controlls can turn your home smart in just a matter of days. Their SmartHome provides a networked system that can operate all lights, audio/visual systems, all electrical appliances through a single remote, keyboard or touchscreen: the choice is yours. All the systems talk to each other through radio frequency, so there’s no need for messy wires. You can install cameras, store all the visual information for later viewing and keep a tab over your house through the Internet when out of station.
Says Managing Director Padamraj Bagrecha, “We are the only player in India which gives a complete integrated solution and our SmartHome is really catching up in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.” Digital Controlls offers five modules: door access system, light control, surveillance, security and home entertainment. You can pick up just one of these or go for the works.
Digital-home-all
As Wi-Max peaks into the city, the residential and other estates will get connected, as per the plan. The Digital Living Network Alliance or DLNA was formed in June 2003 and recommended Network Media Product Requirements or NMPR specifications. So all you’ll need to have will be a product compatible to NMPR specs and a Digital Media Adapter, or DMA to synchronize all your devices at home, which means viewing pictures stored on a PC on your TV screen without having to lay any cables. Wiliam O Leszinkse, Director of Digital Home Marketing, Intel, speaks highly of the technology-”People will be able to take their content wherever they want to. And the experience will be the same wherever you are.”
Remote is the key
Now the big question. Will this actually happen? Ask Intel and they nod in approval. The keyboard may not be a comfy device to all, but the remote sure is. Post-announcement of the Entertainment PC, which is a PC, TV, home theatre all rolled into one, Intel is confident that the setup will run well on any operating system with a remote. Imagine doing away with the keyboard and mouse and controlling the command center of the house with just a remote. That would appeal to people of all ages and all groups. More than 170 companies have joined the DLNA bandwagon and have started rolling out NMPR compliant gadgets.
And Intel isn’t alone
Intel isn’t alone in their thinking. Microsoft’s new Windows XP Media Center 2005 operating system has new features that help a PC compete with consumer electronics devices in the living room, and that turn a PC into a home server capable of feeding audio and video to multiple devices on a wireless network.
It’s designed to turn the home PC into a complete entertainment center. And the simple on-screen interface is designed for a remote control rather than keyboard and mouse (but it’ll work quite Ok with either). In fact, if you can operate a DVD player, then the Media Center shouldn’t be too difficult for you.
Apart from the global giants, Indian biggie Reliance also has big plans through its Netway. The Netway provides high-speed Ethernet links to homes. If you’re a subscriber, then you’ll get the “all-in-one” of high-speed telephony, a host of television channels, video on demand, jukebox, time shifted TV, audio and video conferencing and even surveillance services. What’s more, even the Netway’s centered on the remote that can also be used as a keyboard, mouse and phone!
Looks like it’s going to be a roller coaster ride for both smart homes and smart cities soon.
(This appeared in the January 2005 edition of Living Digital magazine)