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Smart Home Challenges and Approaches to Solve Them: A Practical Industrial Perspective

  • Conference paper
Intelligent Interactive Assistance and Mobile Multimedia Computing (IMC 2009)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 53))

Abstract

Why are smart homes not successfully deployed on the market, even though there are many demonstrator systems in research and industry? Over the past years, we have built and improved one smart home platform ourselves and have been involved with many other comparable systems. In this paper, we share the problems we have come across, and present pragmatic approaches towards solving them.

Current smart homes tend to be too simplistic (limited in their application) or too complex (too hard to use or build or maintain). Many research-oriented systems disregard users’ intent and make decisions for them, trying to “know better.” Also, current systems require too high up-front investment in technology from owners, manufacturers and possible operators.

We suggest using a system architecture with centralized but subsidiary controllers, with open interfaces at software and network levels. Interaction should be based on different types of highly responsive control devices. Besides traditional interaction such as turning on lights, they should let the user select complex scenes, with unobtrusive assistance (prioritizing the presentation of scenes according to context).

We foresee the greatest chance for commercial success if market players work together to create the most valuable applications for end users, but keep their systems open for extension.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Architecture, Siemens AG, Corporate Technology, Otto-Hahn-Ring 6, 81739, Munich, Germany

    Roland Eckl & Asa MacWilliams

Authors
  1. Roland Eckl
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  2. Asa MacWilliams
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Chair for Computer Architecture, Institute of Computer Science, University of Rostock, Albert-Einstein-Str. 21, 18059, Rostock, Germany

    Djamshid Tavangarian

  2. Department of Computer Science, Rostock University, Albert-Einstein-Straße 21, 18059, Rostock, Germany

    Thomas Kirste

  3. Institute of Applied Microelectronics and Computer Engineering, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany

    Dirk Timmermann

  4. Department of Computer Science, Chair of Computer Architecture, University of Rostock, Albert-Einstein-Str. 21, 18059, Rostock, Germany

    Ulrike Lucke

  5. Chair of Computer Architecture, Department of Computer Science, University of Rostock, Albert-Einstein-Str. 21, D-18059, Rostock, Germany

    Daniel Versick

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© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Eckl, R., MacWilliams, A. (2009). Smart Home Challenges and Approaches to Solve Them: A Practical Industrial Perspective. In: Tavangarian, D., Kirste, T., Timmermann, D., Lucke, U., Versick, D. (eds) Intelligent Interactive Assistance and Mobile Multimedia Computing. IMC 2009. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 53. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-10263-9_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-10263-9_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-10262-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-10263-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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