Lower Costs and Greater Selection Making Automated Homes a Reality : Technology: Consumers concerned about security and convenience are expected to make it a $5-billion market by the year 2000.
Glenn L. Moss calls personal computers “too complex.” But the San Bernardino car dealer is spending about $25,000 to give his 11,000-square-foot home enough smarts to rival a PC.
Soon, Moss will be able to call home from any phone to signal a control system to turn on the lights or heat up the Jacuzzi. More practically, the system being installed by the Alta Loma firm Exclusive will: automatically dial the fire department in case of a fire or the police if there is a break-in; turn lawn sprinklers on and off; regulate the house’s temperature and use of electricity to minimize utility costs.
“My feeling is that the technology is out there, so you might as well use it,” said Moss, who is president of Moss Bros. Dodge.
After years of false starts and overblown promises, home automation is finally making some inroads in real estate, in part because of advances in technology and an influx of big name companies investing in product development. More importantly, the gap between the technology and demand has narrowed significantly because automation appeals to the nation’s growing pool of aging homeowners who are more concerned about home security, convenience and cost savings.
A fully automated home with its electric, plumbing, gas and other systems all controlled by a central computer--so that, for example, a faucet or TV left on would send out an alert or shut off by itself--is still not commonplace. But in the last decade more than 2 million homes have been automated, according to Parks Associates, a Dallas-based consulting firm. Most are luxury houses owned by high-tech enthusiasts, celebrities and public officials concerned about security.
The system Moss is installing has features typical of today’s automated home. But companies are now offering more sophisticated features such as windows that close when it rains, remote-controlled gas fireplaces, faucets that turn on instantly when an object is placed under them and security systems that not only call for help but sound an alert when a housekeeper or repairman ventures into an area of the house placed off limits.
The evolution of home automation is being watched closely by executives in a variety of businesses. Consumer products companies believe that today’s automation paves the way for new “smart” appliances and video equipment. Telecommunication and utility companies see the technology as a precursor to more expansive and more lucrative home energy management and telecommunications services.
“We are spending more and more of our discretionary time at home and when people get home they are tired and want to be comfortable or relax,” said Thomas P. Hustad, past president of the Product Development and Management Assn. Given the shift, “home automation is an industry that absolutely has the potential to change our lives” said Hustad, who is also a professor of marketing at Indiana University’s School of Business.
To be sure, the industry has significant marketing and educational hurdles to overcome in a country where experts say half of all video cassette recorder owners don’t know how to program their VCRs to record automatically.
In Mobile, Ala., airline pilot Harry Milford bought a house with a $4,000 home automation system after being impressed with its energy-savings features. But Milford admits that his three sons know more about how to use it than he does. Milford say he has trouble remembering how to operate the dishwasher or house lights by remote control. “It takes me a while to punch in all the codes. My kids are a whiz at using it.”
And home automation is generating heated debate over just how intrusive Americans want technology to become in their most private preserve.
“In principle, home automation can simplify our lives,” said Donald Norman, chairman of the department of cognitive sciences at the University of California in San Diego and the author of “The Design of Everyday Things.” “But I have no faith that the technologists really understand what people need.”
Still in recent months, the home automation industry--which is expected to triple in size to $5.1 billion by the year 2000 from $1.7 billion this year--has been moving from promise to reality with a host of new products:
* In January, a private consortium of consumer and home product companies working with the National Assn. of Homebuilders demonstrated its first fully functional “Smart House.” There are now about a dozen such homes--including one in Fresno on the market for $430,000. Smart House technology, which costs from $12,000 to $15,000, includes a new type of residential electrical wiring and flexible gas piping and a central computer that controls all of the house’s systems.
* This spring, the giant building controls maker Honeywell Corp. began offering a $5,000 home automation system with programmable security, heating, lighting and appliance control. So far the company has sold several hundred units and received more than 4,000 consumer inquiries, said Linda Whitman, Honeywell’s director of advanced systems for homes.
* The more than two dozen companies that have been selling home automation goods over the last decade are introducing second-generation products that are easier to use. They range from a lower cost version of the pricey $14,000 and up Home Manager system offered by Unity Systems Inc. of Redwood City, Calif., to simple $11 to $200 electronic switching devices that can turn appliances and lights on or off by various means including remote control.
Steve Kruschen, a Los Angeles technology consultant who evaluates new gadgets, has placed a large part of his 2,200-square-foot San Fernando Valley home under automatic control. Kruschen said he spent about $2,000 for inexpensive and widely available devices made by industry pioneer X-10 (USA) Inc. of Cluster, N.J. Using a remote control, he can operate his Jacuzzi, house lighting and a security system.
“The technology today is such that you can almost do anything; the drawback has been that was so darn expensive. . .but prices are coming down,” said Judson Hofmann, vice president of Panasonic technologies and chairman of an industry committee that recently completed drafting standards for a new microprocessing technology that could lead to even fancier home automation devices.
Today’s home automation systems are a far cry from the fanciful futuristic electronic gizmos depicted on the 1960s cartoon series “The Jetsons.” But experts say the transformation of the typical single family home into an integrated electronic machine is inevitable: Consumers have already become accustomed to automation in their cars--anti-lock brakes, self-diagnostic engines, automatic seat belts and the like. Government and energy conservationists are providing incentives for many consumers and builders to embrace automation in homes.
On the West Coast, Southern California Edison Co. is offering contractors rebates of $5 to $15 per square foot on homes that meet a certain energy efficiency requirements. Meanwhile, Edison research scientists are evaluating a system that lets the utility monitor and control client electric usage without having to send workers into field.
Ira Norris, an Inland Valley home builder who has invested more than $100,000 in the Smart Home partnership, thinks that beyond installing more insulation and fuel efficient furnaces, home automation may be one of the best ways to meet future energy conservation goals.
Many of his competitors are hard at work building such homes.
Upland-based Lewis Homes, one of the biggest home builders in the nation, is putting up an automated home in Nevada using off-the-shelf products. And Joe Graham, a Mobile, Ala., home builder who has sold several automated homes to Alabama residents in the past three years, airs a local cable television show to promote the technology.
“The first couple of homes we had to give away (the added cost of home automation) because nobody understood the technology. But now there’s a lot of interest,” said Graham.
A study of 1,000 homeowners by Parks Associates and the consulting firm Yankelovich Clancy Shulman in 1989 found that half of those surveyed believed that home automation was a good idea and 42% would probably purchase a system if it cost $5,000 or less. But only 8% thought that costs savings was a potential benefit of home automation.
“We’ve been studying the home automation market since the 1970s and we didn’t feel the market was ready before” because of high prices and lack of consumer interest, said Honeywell’s Whitman. But with costs coming down and consumers growing more pressed for time, Honeywell expects its $5,000 system “to be a major factor in our residential business,” she said.
Currently, there are four home automation technologies: Smart House and the 14-year-old X-10 system as well as two fledgling technologies.
One is a new microchip being tested by Echelon Corp., a Palo Alto high-tech company headed by former Apple Computer Co. founder A.C. (Mike) Markkula. It would be incorporated into existing household wiring to enable appliances and other electronic products to communicate with each other.
The other is called CEBus, a compilation of new electronic standards designed to pave the way for manufacturers to create products that can automatically regulate their own operation.
Although no CEBus or Echelon products are yet available for consumer purchase, the backers of both technologies say they hope to have some products on the market early next year.
Yet as home automation strives for mass market appeal, technical overkill has emerged as a significant issue for product manufacturers and consumers.
“Some of the home automation systems have gotten so far out in left field they are ridiculous; I mean do you really want to talk to your toaster from your car phone?” said Walt Strader, director of new business development for Square D Co., a consumer electronics company that markets a high-tech audio and video system.
“It’s always easy to knock an idea if you cite a ridiculous example,” countered Peter Lesser, president of X-10 (USA), the nation’s oldest maker of home automation components. “But what about the guy coming home from work calling up his house to turn on the heat or the lights. That’s a more practical application.”
Added car dealer Moss: “A home as big as ours (11,000 square feet) is a complex thing to manage.” Some people may think that “home automation is a fancy toy,” he said, but “eventually a lot of people are going to find it useful.”
