The UK Home Automation Archive

Archive Home
Group Home
Search Archive


Advanced Search

The UKHA-ARCHIVE IS CEASING OPERATIONS 31 DEC 2024


[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Sunday Times article: the smart way to live


  • To: <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>
  • Subject: Sunday Times article: the smart way to live
  • From: "Nick Shore" <nick.shore@xxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 10:50:45 -0000
  • Delivered-to: mailing list ukha_d@xxxxxxx
  • Mailing-list: list ukha_d@xxxxxxx; contact ukha_d-owner@xxxxxxx
  • Reply-to: ukha_d@xxxxxxx

An on-topic post to cheer people up :-)
Article from Sunday Times property supplement:
 
Living: The smart way to live
Mike Leidig meets a Swiss family testing an innovative high-tech house — so smart it can even do the shopping
An idyllic Swiss village with old farmhouses and grazing cows may not seem like the typical setting for high-tech innovation, but in Hunenberg the lifestyle of the future is being tested to the full.

It is here, one hour’s drive from Zurich, that a young family has spent a year living in Europe’s first inhabited “smart house”, where the latest technology is being put to the test in a fully automated “internet home” known as Futurelife.

While the man of the house reclines on a sofa enjoying the built-in massager, his newspaper is projected on to the wall via the internet while an automatic lawn mower cuts the grass. His wife, who is visiting a friend an hour’s drive away, makes a mobile phone call to the house to order the cooker to start heating up the evening meal.

Ursi Steiner, 42, and her husband Daniel, 39, were selected from 70 couples to live in the home with their two children. It is a move they say they have not regretted — the house looks after them so well it can even check their health by taking samples to test every time they use the bathroom and warning if a trip to the doctors is advisable.

The project, initiated by business magnate Otto Beisheim, the founder of Metro, Europe’s largest trading business, is designed to see how people live with and react to new technology. “We are testing the devices, discovering their weaknesses and making suggestions for improvements,” says Daniel Steiner. “Whatever does not prove its worth, goes.”

Ursi says: “The house intentionally looks like a normal house from the outside, which shows that you can have a normal life with top technology — and for me it’s now simply our home. Technology doesn’t control our lives, we direct the technology in the house.”

All household appliances are connected to a server in the cellar by a wireless local area network. They can be operated by computers, mobile phones or touch pads — from all around the house and practically anywhere in the world, as it is connected to the internet 24 hours a day via glass-fibre cable.

The technology means they never have to worry if they have left the oven on: they just get the house to check. And if shopping seems like too much of a chore, the house can do that too. Bar codes of empty food packets are read in the bin and put on the shopping list, which is forwarded to the nearest supermarket.

A few hours later, a courier arrives with the food, and if nobody is at home, the products are left in the “Skybox” — a large-scale post box with special compartments for food products that need to be kept cool or frozen. The family receives a text on the mobile phone or an e-mail informing them that the shopping has been delivered.

“Lots of things are much simpler in this house than in my old home,” says Ursi, “and I got used to it all really quickly, without reading instruction booklets. With online shopping, for example, I don’t just save time but can avoid the crowds. And because of the Skybox, I don’t need to rush home to pick up the shopping.”

For her daughter Grace, 12, the home is “simply cool”, especially the television, which is watched cinema-style with Dolby surround via a projector in the ceiling that puts the images on the walls. The device can also play videos and, through the integrated web browser, the newspaper can be brought into the living room over the internet.

Security is another advantage. The front door, for example, is opened by a fingerprint system, and the entire house can be monitored, even from a distance, by mobile phone.

Ursi adds: “All the devices in the house, such as the washing machine in the cellar, let me know when they are finished if I want them to, whether I’m in the kitchen or upstairs in the office. I get the message on my mobile phone or computer.

The Futurelife house is owned and operated by Otto Beisheim Holding, in co-operation with about 60 partner firms that supply the devices, computers and software. The project is expected to run for three years, with the technology being updated constantly.

Despite all the ultra-modern appliances, Ursi admits she does miss one thing about her old home — the open fire.

www.futurelife.ch

 

Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
ADVERTISEMENT
Click Here!

For more information: http://www.automatedhome.co.uk
Post message: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subscribe:  ukha_d-subscribe@xxxxxxx
Unsubscribe:  ukha_d-unsubscribe@xxxxxxx
List owner:  ukha_d-owner@xxxxxxx

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

Home | Main Index | Thread Index

Comments to the Webmaster are always welcomed, please use this contact form . Note that as this site is a mailing list archive, the Webmaster has no control over the contents of the messages. Comments about message content should be directed to the relevant mailing list.