Is Home Automation Lacking Fundamentals?

["Mark McCall" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Automation/Industry/C4S6E9K9

Is Home Automation Lacking Fundamentals?

By Mike Wheeler  Tuesday  07/10/2008
Currently 4,500 out of a possible 150,000 new houses take on some form of
automation, according to Switch Automation General Manager Deb Noller.
While the take-up may be slow Noller is positive the potential for growth
is
huge, but there is no fundamental research on the market, which needs
addressing. "I think we will see a ten-fold increase in take up in
less than
8 years and the driving factors in this will be energy management and the
cost savings that we can deliver to developers in cabling and in
integrating
standalone devices into one interface," said Noller.

However the key to this growth is educating people, according to Noller.
"The number of times I'm at a sports event or in a social setting and
people
ask me what I do, I sometimes think to myself "why go there?"
because people
just do not know what home automation entails," she says.

One of the problems is one of perception. In the survey carried out by
Connection Research, people identified Sony, LG and Harvey Norman as
providers of home automation products ahead of real providers such as
Clipsal and specialist providers. Only 0.7 percent mentioned Clipsal, while
0.3 indicated specialist providers, for a grand total of one percent. As
for
the overall knowledge of the market, almost 70 percent knew nothing about
the home automation.

Another perception is that automation can be expensive, however the
benefits
are sometimes undersold. The savings on energy efficiencies is just one
area
that, in the long run, can save money. Switch showcased a system that can
actually highlight how much energy an individual lamp is putting out,
through to automatically switching off lights in a part of a home where a
motion detector can tell that nobody has been in the room for 15 minutes.

"People also say "why not just get up and switch off the
light", which is
fair enough," says Noller. "However, this is not about being
lazy, it's
about finding solutions to lighting problems and energy efficiencies."

Like any technology, the more people who are on the uptake, the more
economies of scale kick in, and it suddenly becomes cheaper. Switch
believes
that mid-range market is one of huge potential. "[Other providers] can
go
after that high-end market," says Noller, "but we are after that
lower to
mid end. People would be surprised how affordable it is."

One avenue that can help is if Cedia starts commissioning research on the
market, something that is sorely lacking at the moment. Noller hopes in the
near future that all the members will support some sort of comprehensive
research, which will give vendors and installers a gauge as to where they
are heading.

http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Automation/Industry/C4S6E9K9


M.


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