Articles and whitepapers

The Application Home Initiative - TAHI (6/2/2006)

By Mike Windsor, TAHI

Barely a week now goes by without another story in the media about smart services, telecare and the integrated home. It could be news of a luxurious high-tech housing development or the introduction of a ground-breaking local authority scheme to streamline the delivery of services. As often as not, it is the launch of another covetable bit of entertainment kit - particularly around Christmas and the January sales when these gadgets and gizmos are flavour of the month.

Whatever the object of all this media attention, it is music to the ears of TAHI members. TAHI - The Application Home Initiative - is a not-for-profit group of innovative businesses and academics whose mission is to hasten the public's embrace of smart home technologies and services. It includes household technology names, FTSE 100 companies, SME businesses and universities. Since it was set up five years ago, members have been quietly working behind the scenes to smooth the delivery of truly integrated connected home services.

Earlier this year, TAHI members completed a 30-month programme of high-level DTI-backed trials in conjunction with Loughborough, De Montfort and Heriot Watt universities to demonstrate and promote interoperability between different appliances and services, and to test consumer attitudes to smart appliances which had been specially installed in their homes. Other TAHI achievements include developing principles for an open architecture of smart systems and creating business modelling tools. And we are currently entering an exciting new phase to open up the smart home market - but more of that later.

The smart home is just around the corner

Of course, the glamorous stories inevitably hog the media limelight: the enviable lifestyles of the rich, cool and famous in their fabulous hi-tech homes make great copy. The heartening news for TAHI - and indeed the rest of us - is the speed at which smart technology is at last becoming much more accessible and percolating through to us ordinary mortals. After years of Futurama-type speculation, the media is finally reflecting the fact that the hi-tech dream is rapidly turning into a reality.

Beyond's Icebox desktop media centre

Smart technology will revolutionise life, making it more comfortable, convenient, energy-efficient and secure. A smart house can be defined as one where all electronic equipment and services - from the washing machine, gas meter, lighting and heating to the television and sound system - are networked and can be controlled remotely via the PC and mobile phone. Complete control over home management is at the householder's fingertips. Home security can be monitored from the office or holiday beach, emails can be read on the TV screen, the fridge will order shopping on the Internet, and if you leave the lights on or a tap running, a monitor will raise the alarm that resources are being wasted.

Telecare and telemedicine services enabled by smart technology will allow elderly people to enjoy living independently for longer, and unnecessary trips to the doctor or hospital will be a thing of the past. As baby boomers reach retirement in the next few years and life expectancy climbs, smart home technologies will play a crucial role in relieving the pressure that threatens to overstretch the UK's social services and healthcare systems.

What consumers want

The technology is already out there. The biggest hurdle is not in developing ever more intelligent applications, but in providing smart services which ordinary consumers actually want, are prepared to pay for, and can use instinctively, whether they are aged eight or eighty. Indeed, one of the key findings of TAHI's recent trials was that consumers want smart products and services which fit in with their existing homes and lifestyle and which are simple to use - for example, using their TV to access interactive services such as information about energy consumption, local services and home shopping.

Home automation opens up a world of opportunity to service providers. That is why TAHI is now taking the exciting step of forging links with those who design and build our homes and take care of our health and welfare services - they touch people's daily lives and have a crucial role to play in transforming the smart home from concept to reality.

Using the TV for Internet banking

Last November we held a cross-industry conference exploring the commercial reality of the smart home where the speakers included smart house trailblazers such as BT, Bryant Homes, energy providers EDF, York University's Centre for Usable Home Technology, intelligent buildings specialists i&i, Severn Trent Water, Initial Community Care, system integrators Tridium, and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's national DigiTV community project.

The future

Everyone agreed that the smart home lifestyle is just around the corner - perhaps only four or five years away. After all, US research group TDG expects that global home networking will grow from 35 million homes in 2004 to over 160 million by 2010. Consequently, TDG also believes that the number of network-capable devices will increase dramatically, rising from 108 million today to a staggering one billion Internet and LAN-friendly gadgets in 2010. According to Ofcom, an estimated 99.6% of UK homes should be connected to a broadband-enabled exchange capable of a 1-2Mb/s connection by the end of 2005. Most estimates suggest that in 2010, over half of all UK households will benefit from blended average broadband speeds of 10Mb/s, which is fast enough to make them video-capable.

The result of the TAHI conference is that we are currently setting up working groups focusing on the areas we have identified as key: Energy, Conservation and Green issues; Social, Wellbeing and Community; Health and Telecare; Entertainment; Building; and Home Systems.

In the coming weeks we will be bringing together groups of companies to create world-beating market solutions and we would like to invite anyone who thinks their organisation should take part to contact us. The opportunities and the rewards could be enormous.

For more information please email the Commercialisation Group Leader, Neil Spence Jones nsj@openhub.co.uk or call him on 01223 422005.

Mike Windsor is the Marketing and Communications Group leader of TAHI and Managing Director of Digital Living Ltd.

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