Smart Home -project

The basic idea in TUT smart home research was to design and construct electronic devices that would not be perceived by users, until they would actually be used. This means that devices should be small in size, have flexible means of communication, have low power consumption (i.e. be battery powered) and be difficult to detect visually. These devices can be installed in an normal, familiar environment and assist us in our everyday lives.

The smart home project started in 1999 with the conversion of a laboratory space into a smart living room. More information about the living room and the technology used there can be found HERE. The Living Room was in use until late 2002, and provided the research team with valuable experiences with practical smart environment installations and designs.

Two years after the Living Room project had started the Department of Electronics moved to a new building at the university. Plans included a dedicated 69 m2 laboratory space for smart home research. The Smart Home is a complete apartment with a bedroom, living room, kitchen, sauna and bathroom. Normal household items and furniture has been installed to make the space comfortable and functional for everyday use.

The laboratory space was named the "Smart Home" and furnished to resemble a normal modern apartment. However, many changes were made to the structure and design that would allow easier modification and installation of new systems and appliances in the future.

The Living Room was created in order to conduct further studies on user interfaces, home networks and other smart home technology. One key research item was also network and device interoperability; how could incompatible devices from different manufacturers be connected together and used through the same home network? Thus the goal of this research became to prove that with an appropriate system architecture it is possible to connect devices from different manufacturers to a common infrastructure. Creating a home network either requires re-design of all devices or creation of network converters, and the Smart Home laboratory experiments with both ideas. An affordable or cheap solution to the home networking problem was sought by implementing a complete home network with different kinds of user interfaces and conducting long-term tests. Existing and proven network standards were used as widely as possible and adopted into the Smart Home.

The Smart Home was developed parallel with the eHome research project, and it is primarily used for testing prototypes, usability testing, measurements and product demonstrations.

For a more visual presentation please check the video clip below:

Updated , Hokkanen Mirja