Today, even the most conservative people in the field of technology have heard, at least out of the corner of their ear, such concepts as “Multiroom”, “Smart House”, “Smart House”.
Unfortunately, hearing is one thing, but having a clear idea of what it really is is quite another.
The very concept of “smart” home (English smart house) is not so young. It arose in the United States in the early 70s of the last century, in the depths of the “Institute of Intelligent Buildings”. At that time, a smart home meant “a building that provides productive and efficient use of the workspace …”.
However, the year of birth of the modern “smart” home can be considered 1978, when in the USA companies X10 USA and Leviton developed a technology called X10 and began production of devices for controlling household appliances via household power wires.
At that time, these developments were distributed only in the United States, since the equipment operated at a voltage of 110 V and a mains frequency of 60 Hz (American power grid standard). Nevertheless, it is to these firms that mankind owes the appearance of “incredible miracles of progress” – automatically opening doors, lights that turn on by the clap and other “tricks” with which wealthy Americans surprised their guests.
At that time, X10 technology (which still exists) was revolutionary. But its capabilities were very limited, and it was mainly used to control lighting. But in connection with the growing demands of users, there was a need for new features. This led to the Consumer Electronic Bus (CEBus) standard in 1992. Today, the CEBus communication protocol provides for the transmission of a control signal over household power wires, twisted pair, coaxial cable, in the radio frequency or infrared range.
In our time, in addition to the technologies mentioned here (modernized, but still rather “slow” X10, as well as CEBus), there are others on the basis of which the concept of an “intelligent” home can be implemented.
As an example of the most powerful functionally and at the same time flexible system of this kind, we can cite the equipment of the American company Crestron, which meets the requirements of the most demanding customers.
In Europe, the most common is the EIB protocol (an abbreviation for the English European Installation Bus). Today, perhaps, this is the main European platform on which the construction of “smart” houses is carried out. Its other name is Instabus.
Equipment of this standard is produced by leading European manufacturers in the field of electrical engineering and automation: ABB, Siemens, Gira, Merten, Berker, Jung, etc.