Wired home will know who's home

By SIMON COLLINS

Massey University plans to build the smartest house in the world on its Albany campus.

The $3 million house will incorporate the latest automated devices, including a robot that does the vacuuming, a toaster that does your toast just the way you want it, and taps that can be turned on over the internet to run your bath as you near home.

Its designers say it will be the world's first "smart house" to bring all such devices together in a network that can respond to the tastes of anyone who enters the house wearing a pre-programmed watch.

"Bill Gates has got one [smart house]. There's one in the UK. But they are all tailored around the individual living in the house," said Olaf Diegel, the robotics lecturer who is co-ordinating the project.

"We are working on more than that, so that people could walk into anyone's house and be recognised. The house will know your various preferences and whether you have any disabilities or special needs."

The project will be used as a research tool for students in several Massey departments.

A company will also be created to sell the system to the public, focusing first on older people with chronic health problems.

Although the initial research and construction of the house will cost $1 million a year for three years, Mr Diegel expects the computer "backbone" of the system to sell commercially for between $10,000 and $15,000.

"Bill Gates' house cost US$23 million, but nobody in New Zealand is going to put a $23 million system in their house," he said.

"This will be a low-cost network that can be retrofitted into existing homes." The key to the design is a communication system named after Danish king Harald Bluetooth, who died in 986AD after unifying Denmark and part of Norway in a single kingdom.

About 2000 manufacturers have signed up to designing their electronic devices to "talk" to one another on the Bluetooth radio frequency band of 2.45 gigahertz.

A Bluetooth-equipped toaster, for example, will detect the Bluetooth module in your watch when you came within range and cook the toast to your liking.

Tiny Bluetooth network nodes will be installed in the ceiling about two metres apart to keep track of where everybody is in the house.

"You would normally have a node at the beginning and end of a hallway so it lights the hallway when you go into it and switches the lights off afterwards to save energy," Mr Diegel said.

"The entire environment would be set around heating only the area that the person is in and to the level that they like."

"Smart windows" will be set to clean themselves and to let more light in on dark days, shut out light on hot days and act as curtains at night.

Wall display units will be programmed to show your favourite artworks when you enter the room.

The kitchen will be designed so that if you approach it in a wheelchair, the bench will lower itself to your height and the appliances will move to the front of the bench, where you can get at them.

The computer will respond to ordinary spoken English and will know when it is being spoken to.

"You'd have a code word. Think of it as a virtual butler and give it a name like 'Jeeves'," Mr Diegel said.

"Obviously there will be security settings where the owner of the house can say, 'This is only for me', or 'This allows certain listed people in'."

The computer will be programmed to recognise your face so it will know if someone else is wearing your watch.

"For a start, it wouldn't open the door. It could do all sorts of nasty things, I suppose," Mr Diegel said.

Children will be able to monitor their aged parents, or parents will be able to watch their children in the house over the internet from work.

"A lot of elderly people want full independence but their families are worried about them," said Mr Diegel.

"It's difficult to talk about it without sounding like Big Brother. But in principle, the computer knows where you are in the house and whether you are having health problems."

Apart from the core system, the plan includes optional extras ranging from a robot pet dog, already on sale in Japan for around US$1000 ($1760), to a cockroach-like "robo-maid" that can vacuum the floors, mow the lawn and then sprout a platform on which it can deliver you a drink.

Massey scientists are designing a system where the fridge can monitor the food you eat and order replacements over the internet from the supermarket.

"I'm not saying that's going to be available this year or next," Mr Diegel said.

"If you have something tagged, it's dead easy. The difficulty is if you have only half the milk left or half the lettuce. How do you measure it?"

Mr Diegel hopes the smart house will be completed by the end of next year. It will be open as a public show home and as a "virtual walk-through" website.