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New technologies promise
home automation capabilities at lower costs than ever before. Busy families
and those with physical limitations represent a fertile market for the
new technologies. Utilities, faced with fierce competition in a rapidly
changing, deregulated business environment, are looking to deliver new
customer services.
The confluence of these three
trends presents a short term window of opportunity for utilities, consumer
electronics companies and appliance manufacturers to gain early entry
to a field about to explode with possibilities. To seize the moment
requires an understanding of the history, technologies, the infrastructures,
and markets of the home automation industry.
That's where Home Automation
and Utility Customer Services comes in. This dramatic report,
written by industry insider Ken Wacks, covers the home automation industry
from basement to attic.
History
Wacks traces the history of
the industry from the home hobbyist phase of the 1960's through the recognition
of home automation as a potential market bonanza in the mid-1980s to its
current status poised on the threshold of becoming a billion dollar market.
Infrastructures and standards
His report covers the major
infrastructures and standards that are vying for dominance in the nascent
industry. Learn how the Consumer Electronics Bus (CEBus) an open standard
developed by the Electronics Industries Association (EIA) differs from
LonWorks technology of Echelon Corporation. See which utilities are supporting
each approach, and see how they compare to SMART HOUSE, X-10, BatiBUS,
European Home System, European Installation Bus, and Japan's Home Bus
System.
EIA continues to support
maintenance of the standard while a CEBus Industry Council has been
formed to push the standard in the market. Sponsors include IBM, Honeywell,
Intel, Pacific Gas & Electric, and Lucent Technologies (ne AT&T),
among others. Echelon is pushing to have its LonWorks approach be considered
a home automation standard as well. Issues to be resolved include terms
for licensing, and which features to include in the standard.
A billion-dollar market?
Current market estimates range
from several millions of dollars to one-billion dollars or more. Whatever
the real number may be, product announcements, corporate research reports,
marketing of wiring infrastructures for homes, publications aimed at the
home automation industry, and exploration by energy utilities of new customer
services based on home automation all indicate that the industry is growing
and evolving. The report explains how the industry will be influenced
by the housing market, consumer demand, the trend to home offices, and
demographic trends as the baby boom ages.
The technology
But just what kinds of technology
go into home automation? There's communications--learn why digital is
the way to go; local area networks--follow the evolution to LAN standards;
communications protocols and media--find out how fast data can be transferred
and what's the best way to carry that data. A special appendix discusses
the challenges and promises of power line carrier communications--one
of the keys to successful, low cost home automation.
What should utilities do?
And then there's the utility
connection. With the coming of a competitive environment, utilities are
seeking to diversify their product offerings beyond energy. Value-added
services, extending to home automation, represent the chief means for
utilities to differentiate themselves. Find out how utilities must struggle
to balance the need to maintain a return on shareholder equity, conform
to local and Federal regulations, and survive in a competitive environment.
Discover possible strategies that adventurous and conservative utilities
can take to secure their place in the new environment.
Learn which electric utilities
are experimenting with providing services and capabilities such as automatic
meter reading, monitoring of power quality and delivery, detailed billing
data, staggered power restoration, tamper detection, appliance diagnosis,
telemetry services. Gas utilities are covered too, with such services
as monitoring gas flow and quality, monitoring pipe corrosion, determining
load profiles, distribution safety improvements, detection of meter
tampering, monitoring indoor air quality, and coordination of fuel switching.
Summaries are presented on
a number of utility projects, including: American Electric Power's time-of-use
pricing trial with TranstexT technology; Cable Utility Communications
Services with trials in progress at Southern California Edison and Virginia
Power; Central and South West's trial with First Pacific Network's communications
equipment; Detroit Edison's Intelligent Link Project using LonWorks
technology; Lucent Technologies' trials with PSE&G and Consolidated
Edison; Pacific Gas and Electric's Energy Information Services project;
TeCom's InterLane energy management and home automation system; and
Wisconsin Electric Power's alliance with Ameritech to develop customer
service capabilities. Size, scope, and status are discussed for each
project.
The players
The report also covers the major
players in the industry--learn who they are and find out about their major
activities and strategies. An appendix to the report provides contact
information for 40 of the major companies and organizations that are helping
to shape the field. |
