Smart Homes

We live in an increasingly connected and automated society. Smart environments embody this trend by linking computers to everyday tasks and settings. Important features of such environments are that they possess a degree of autonomy, adapt themselves to changing conditions, and communicate with humans in a natural way. These systems can be found in offices, airports, hospitals, classrooms, or any other environment. This article discusses automation of our most personal environment: the home. There are several characteristics that are commonly found in smart homes. This type of environment assumes controls and coordinates a network of sensors and devices, relieving the inhabitants of this burden. Interaction with smart homes is in a form that is comfortable to people: speech, gestures, and actions take the place of windows, icons, menus, and pointers. We define a smart home as one that is able to acquire and apply knowledge about its inhabitants and their surroundings in order to adapt to the inhabitants and meet the goals of comfort and efficiency. Designing and implementing smart homes requires a unique breadth of knowledge not limited to a single discipline, but integrates aspects of machine learning, decision making, human-machine interfaces, wireless networking, mobile communications, databases, sensor networks, and pervasive computing. With these capabilities, the home can control many aspects of the environment such as climate, lighting, maintenance, and entertainment. Intelligent automation of these activities can reduce the amount of interaction required by inhabitants and reduce energy consumption and other potential operating costs. The same capabilities can be