Article Index

Other systems

Using special hardware, almost any household appliance can be monitored and controlled automatically or remotely, including cooking appliances, swimming pool systems, and others.

Costs mainly include equipment, components, furniture, and custom installation.Costs

Ongoing costs include electricity to run the control systems, maintenance costs for the control and networking systems, including troubleshooting, and eventual cost of upgrading as standards change. Increased complexity may also increase maintenance costs for networked devices. Cloud-based services supporting an installation may also entail fees for setup, usage, or both.

Learning to use a complex system effectively may take significant time and training.

Control system security may be difficult and costly to maintain, especially if the control system extends beyond the home, for instance by wireless or by connection to the internet or other networks.

Smart grid

Home automation technologies are viewed as integral additions to the smart grid. Communication between a home automation system and the grid would allow applications like load shedding during system peaks, or would allow the homeowner to automatically defer energy use to periods of low grid cost. Green automation or "demand response" are terms that refer to  energy management strategies in home automation when data from smart grids is combined with home automation systems to use resources at either their lowest prices or highest availability, taking advantage, for instance, of high solar panel output in the middle of the day to automatically run washing machines.

Organizations

  • CENELEC
  • Continental Automated Buildings Association
  • Digital Living Network Alliance
  • Living Tomorrow
  • MIT AgeLab
  • SIMO TCI
  • QIVICON