28-12-2012, 02:16 PM
Home Automation
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ABSTRACT
A March 20 2012 report in TOI had an article titled “ Technology per square foot” that gave a rosy picture of the home automation sector in India. But is the real picture so rosy ?
27% of people in India live below the poverty line. How many of the elite actually subscribe to home automation services? While there is nothing wrong in embracing technology, technology is not without its associated challenges. Builders in Bangalore like Mantri & Total Environment are charging Rs 250 to Rs 300 sq ft and this translates to Rs 12.5-15 lakh for a 5000 sq ft apartment.
Mantri Espana, the luxury residential complex at Outer ring road , Bangalore is highly technology intensive . Lighting, curtains, blinds, geysers all can be controlled wirelessly by smart phone , video phone or tablet. No switches. Wireless centralized music control.
Technology controls security. Balconies have motion detectors. The periphery of the building is controlled by electronic sensors that detect intrusion. Videophones in each apartment screen visitors. Proximity ID cards issued to drivers and maids track their movement within the apartment complex.
Mantri’s claim is that the complex has a telemedicine facility and will have qualified nurses and paramedic staff who will connect with doctors at Apollo hospital. A good sales pitch . A good strategy. But how will the situation be 5 years after wards ? Setting up anything new is by far the simplest thing to do . Maintaining the efforts over the years is crucial.
There are signs that home automation is moving from concept to adoption. Technologies have proved themselves to be stable and resilient and also prices have dropped so that they prove to be useful in high end residential complexes. Total Environment’s “windmills of your mind” complex uses Ipad for home automation for unlocking doors , preset mood lighting for every room, turn on garden sprinklers and open and close curtains.
Sobha Developers project Habitech in Whitefield has technology that can customize lighting, fan speed and AC through a touch pad or smart phone . Soft panic buttons for the elderly in case of an emergency.
The boom barrier will sense an incoming car automatically using RFD technology and the gates will open automatically (Remember the Bollywood thriller Woh Kaun Thi ?). If Raj Khosla would have made “ Who Kaun Thi” today, it would have been simpler to show gates automatically opening to an incoming car.
Some developers are thinking of developing talking gadgets but these are far too premature for Indian market and can at best be compared to innovations like electric cars , Hydrogen / fuel cell car technologies, which still have a long way to go before they are implemented.
Technology partners have mushroomed so much that it has become a difficult process to choose the right one. You have someone called “Channel partners” who act as interface between technology solution providers and vendors / suppliers. They hold conferences, exhibitions and publish magazines. In these security magazines, 2/3 articles are written by industry personnel themselves as a marketing promotion tool (they mostly make self serving statements) . Interestingly, in these magazines, it appears as if the articles are carried between the advertisements.
The ability of a technology solution provider to customize design and use local engineering talent to provide a best optimal solution is important. Even if technology is cheaper , the cost of maintaining the technology is not going to be cheaper.IBM and Ingersoll Rand have joined hands to share their expertise to assess energy requirement and usage in buildings.Cisco is another player in building technologies.
Despite all the so called comforts , the one thing that technology is surely going to do is make people more and more lazy. The balance between technology for security and technology for comfort is conspicuous by its absence. All the time saved in not getting up to pull curtains or switch on the lights will be spent in gym trying to burn the calories.
One is not sure how these technologies will work if there are frequent power outages. Even if they are having UPS backup or generator back up it only means that these technologies are not as energy intensive as they claim to be . More importantly it is not necessary that each and every member in a family will be technically savvy. In a country like ours , where people don’t know how to use fire extinguishers, expecting all of them to adapt to sophisticated surveillance technologies is no easy job.
As things stand today , all this talk of home automation still looks to be a rhetoric - all style without substance.
[attachment=45577]
ABSTRACT
A March 20 2012 report in TOI had an article titled “ Technology per square foot” that gave a rosy picture of the home automation sector in India. But is the real picture so rosy ?
27% of people in India live below the poverty line. How many of the elite actually subscribe to home automation services? While there is nothing wrong in embracing technology, technology is not without its associated challenges. Builders in Bangalore like Mantri & Total Environment are charging Rs 250 to Rs 300 sq ft and this translates to Rs 12.5-15 lakh for a 5000 sq ft apartment.
Mantri Espana, the luxury residential complex at Outer ring road , Bangalore is highly technology intensive . Lighting, curtains, blinds, geysers all can be controlled wirelessly by smart phone , video phone or tablet. No switches. Wireless centralized music control.
Technology controls security. Balconies have motion detectors. The periphery of the building is controlled by electronic sensors that detect intrusion. Videophones in each apartment screen visitors. Proximity ID cards issued to drivers and maids track their movement within the apartment complex.
Mantri’s claim is that the complex has a telemedicine facility and will have qualified nurses and paramedic staff who will connect with doctors at Apollo hospital. A good sales pitch . A good strategy. But how will the situation be 5 years after wards ? Setting up anything new is by far the simplest thing to do . Maintaining the efforts over the years is crucial.
There are signs that home automation is moving from concept to adoption. Technologies have proved themselves to be stable and resilient and also prices have dropped so that they prove to be useful in high end residential complexes. Total Environment’s “windmills of your mind” complex uses Ipad for home automation for unlocking doors , preset mood lighting for every room, turn on garden sprinklers and open and close curtains.
Sobha Developers project Habitech in Whitefield has technology that can customize lighting, fan speed and AC through a touch pad or smart phone . Soft panic buttons for the elderly in case of an emergency.
The boom barrier will sense an incoming car automatically using RFD technology and the gates will open automatically (Remember the Bollywood thriller Woh Kaun Thi ?). If Raj Khosla would have made “ Who Kaun Thi” today, it would have been simpler to show gates automatically opening to an incoming car.
Some developers are thinking of developing talking gadgets but these are far too premature for Indian market and can at best be compared to innovations like electric cars , Hydrogen / fuel cell car technologies, which still have a long way to go before they are implemented.
Technology partners have mushroomed so much that it has become a difficult process to choose the right one. You have someone called “Channel partners” who act as interface between technology solution providers and vendors / suppliers. They hold conferences, exhibitions and publish magazines. In these security magazines, 2/3 articles are written by industry personnel themselves as a marketing promotion tool (they mostly make self serving statements) . Interestingly, in these magazines, it appears as if the articles are carried between the advertisements.
The ability of a technology solution provider to customize design and use local engineering talent to provide a best optimal solution is important. Even if technology is cheaper , the cost of maintaining the technology is not going to be cheaper.IBM and Ingersoll Rand have joined hands to share their expertise to assess energy requirement and usage in buildings.Cisco is another player in building technologies.
Despite all the so called comforts , the one thing that technology is surely going to do is make people more and more lazy. The balance between technology for security and technology for comfort is conspicuous by its absence. All the time saved in not getting up to pull curtains or switch on the lights will be spent in gym trying to burn the calories.
One is not sure how these technologies will work if there are frequent power outages. Even if they are having UPS backup or generator back up it only means that these technologies are not as energy intensive as they claim to be . More importantly it is not necessary that each and every member in a family will be technically savvy. In a country like ours , where people don’t know how to use fire extinguishers, expecting all of them to adapt to sophisticated surveillance technologies is no easy job.
As things stand today , all this talk of home automation still looks to be a rhetoric - all style without substance.