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From multimedia show to storm warnings (16/4/2004)

e/home 2004: Exciting new industry trends, all under one roof

When the three-day international trade fair and congress e/home 2004 opens on1 September on the Berlin Exhibition Grounds this will be the third occasion on which a variety of different sectors, craft trades and service providers have met here, comprising all the technical experts, marketing specialists, planners, entrepreneurs and building developers involved in the process of creating the intelligent home.

This explains the special attraction of e/home: it is the only event of its kind, and it covers the entire spectrum represented by the many separate markets that make up the intelligent home and which are becoming increasingly involved with one another. The parallel "Forum Innovative Consumer Electronics", organised by the Consumer Electronics Trade Association, part of the electro-industry federation ZVEI, augments the e/home programme in a highly effective way. This series of papers, accompanied by its own exhibition, will focus on a wide range of topics involving the electronic media.

With the start of the fair now only about four months away the organisers are busy with detailed planning of all the main topics. The most interesting trends are previewed below:

The trend in entertainment: Broadband DSL networks supply videos and music to the home, while LAN technology is used for the wireless distribution of sound and pictures throughout the house. Two more new video-on-demand portals came on stream in March this year. The online videotheque, regarded for many years as more of a technological vision of the future than a genuine alternative to the traditional video cassette hire business, has thus become a tangible reality and an addition to the expanding range of available media systems. March also saw the launch of a new music portal in Germany, offering a wide range of material ready for downloading from all the leading labels. And this will be followed this year by at least two more music portals which will be accessible throughout Europe. Then a click on the mouse of a home PC or on the remote control of a home server is all that will be needed in order to obtain just about any kind of music.

Such media content can find its way to a television or hi-fi unit, no what where they may be in the house, via the home network. Already today many technical solutions exist to provide a link between traditional consumer electronics components and servers from the world of information technology, and their numbers are growing at a fantastic rate. They are available from the manufacturers of consumer electronics equipment and also from the major computer and software suppliers. A comprehensive review of such solutions and systems is available at e/home and at the "Forum Innovative Consumer Electronics".

The trend in input interfaces: Man-machine interfaces have a key role to play in developing the networked home market, because they are instrumental in determining the actual use that can be made of all the various technical installations. For example, programmable, universal remote controls are already available, similar to those of a portable computer monitor: Graphic elements are used to symbolise the functions of all the networked components in the home, and commands are given by lightly touching the surface of the screen. Such intuitive and simple functions are among the latest advances in advanced technology. Special "middleware" solutions, which are actually software platforms, acting as an intermediary between electronics equipment and the applications themselves, ensure that components from widely differing manufacturers can "understand" one another and respond to commands from a remote control device. Experts who are interested in the complex digital technology beneath such elegant surfaces will find an exciting range of background information at e/home.

Operating and control concepts that do not require any mechanical input of commands, for example voice-activated systems, are equally interesting. There will be plenty of examples at e/home of just how reliable such solutions are these days. And in the more distant future there may be systems which respond simply to the user's wishes: Research projects will be on display at e/home which are concerned with translating minute currents of brain activity into commands. These could have an important role to play in medical care one day.

The trend in home automation: An interesting range of modern household appliances is now available which can "understand" one another via home networks, can interact without any human intervention, and can even be controlled remotely or even be maintained by remote service providers by means of network links. State of the art developments will be on show at e/home, which also provides a forum for more in-depth discussions of other, related issues: for example, how to upgrade older buildings to enable them to make full use of home automation systems. What network solutions are available for this purpose? How can internal networks be connected to the external internet in order to provide access to remote maintenance or control functions? How can equipment from different manufacturers be interlinked in a common network? How can one ensure that individual items intended for use with other, networked equipment will retain their viability in the future? These and many more questions will be dealt with by the experts in their papers at e/home.

The security trend: Alarm systems, fire alarms, video monitoring systems, entry control systems - all of these devices are intended to enable the owners of networked homes to sleep more easily. In addition to a wide range of relevant solutions, e/home is also presenting examples of services that make modern security systems complete, or enhance their effectiveness, one example being the external monitoring of the functions of electrical installations. This field also includes early warnings of bad weather: meteorological services can already provide warnings by SMS of impending natural disasters. Not only do such messages give the recipient an opportunity to make the house secure before the storm arrives, but they can also be used to alert drivers about severe storms, with built-in GPS antennae designed to automatically activate the alarm system as the vehicle nears the area at risk.

The building and planning trend: Sell and rent service areas instead of living areas - this somewhat provocative slogan describes the contribution that home networking can make to future models in the housing industry. The response to a declining population, empty homes and increasing demands for comfort is obvious: for tenants or buyers property is far more attractive if it is provided with networked systems, with internet access being as common a feature as an electricity supply, and an attractive range of services such as electronic portering, a direct line to the janitor and the provision of tele-medical support. For the home owner of the future e/home also offers a fascinating forum, with valuable suggestions about every aspect of the planned acquisition, from project planning to cable installation and the co-ordination of all the building trade items involved in the home networking process.

Messe Berlin is the general organiser of e/home 2004, assisted by Gesellschaft fŸr Unterhaltungs- und Kommunikationselektronik mbH (gfu), which also organises the Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA). The other partners in this event are the retail association Bundesverband Technik des Einzelhandels (BVT) and the electro-industry association Zentralverband Elektrotechnik- und Elektronikindustrie (ZVEI).

www.ehome-berlin.de