Welcome to the age of the smart home

Say you are travelling to Kisumu from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi, you can programme the air conditioner in the house in Kisumu to cool the room to a certain temperature while still at JKIA.

“If there is only one person in the room, the same air conditioning system will sense the heat load and calibrate itself so that it does not run on full power,” says Allan Oyier, director of consumer electronics at Samsung East Africa.

And while such smart technology is only just making an appearance on the local scene, it is not exactly news in some places. If you were to get a job as a home manager for one of the world’s richest men, Bill Gates, upon arrival at his mansion just outside of Seattle near Washington, you would be issued with an electronic chip that will do some ‘thinking’ for you as you go about your business.

As you walk into a room, the chip will communicate ahead of time to switch on the lights ahead of you and fade them as you leave.

If you choose to stay in a particular room for a longer period of time, the chip will switch on your favourite music. In short, it tracks everything you do and adjusts according to your personal preferences.

Intelligent system

What if two people enter and stay in a room at the same time? Then the system makes a compromise by striking a balance in their preferences.

Then there is the home of Andy Stanford-Clark, head of the Internet of Things department at IBM. He lives in a 16th Century cottage, but it may as well be UK’s smartest home.

The windows of his house can sense if they have been left open when the owner leaves home.

The fish pond checks if the air is windy before turning the fountains on. Even the mouse traps will send a message to his device every time they are triggered.

Welcome to the era of smart homes where devices and appliances are connected so that they ‘talk’ to each other in your absence.

Who would not like to have a home system that tells him if the lights were switched off, the security alarm is working or the kids are asleep or watching television at midnight?

Can you also imagine a refrigerator that creates a dinner menu for you depending on the food that you store regularly, or a washing machine that informs you when the cycle is complete while you are chatting with your neighbour?

While such an idea would have seemed farfetched in the past, it is a modern reality especially in the era of smart phones, tablets and easily accessible Internet.

At a time when Kenyans are developing multi-million-dollar homes, it only makes sense to go the extra mile and make the home smart through modern technology.

According to Philips East Africa General Manager Roelof Assies, it is possible for a person to integrate smart home solutions right at the home-development stage.

“Some features such as an integrated lighting and audio-visual systems that controls the entire home can be installed early on in home development,” he says. And it is not just the new start ups that are embracing the idea of an integrated home system but established companies as well.

Innovation

Oyier says there is need to keep innovating since consumer needs and expectations are changing by the day, egged on by the ever-changing lifestyles of the enlarging middle class.

In addition, he says the African continent is ripe for such home convergence techniques that have the ability to track energy usage and conserve it where possible.

“For example in Kenya, where power outages are common, there is need to customise home appliances to enhance sustainability in the harsh environment,” he says.

According to Mr Oyier, the benefits of smart technology can only be accrued if manufacturers incorporate energy-saving features in their designs.

He cites the example of some smart television sets that automatically adjust the picture brightness thus saving more than 40 per cent of energy.

“Most of our products, such as air conditioners are calibrated to be environmentally friendly in their use of a specific gas that does not contain any chemicals which can damage the ozone layer,” says Oyier.

However, majority of Kenyans are yet to embrace the smart-homes technology due to what Oyier terms as lack of accurate information.

The use of such technology would also mean that people would have to install compatible appliances.

“There is need to educate consumers through social media such as daily communication on Twitter. We are also giving further guidelines to technical students on how to research smart home technology,” he says.

Further uptake on smart-home technology is also hindered by the limited electricity penetration in many Kenyan homes, especially in rural areas.