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By Barbara Knecht

Systems that can learn will improve on those like Honeywell’s Hometronic (content.honeywell.com/uk/Press/hometronic_online.htm) system that can manage your HVAC, lighting, window shades, home appliances, and more, even when you are away. This one and others like it can be programmed to take advantage of periods when utility rates are lower. There is even a way for communications to take place with the utility companies to take advantage of fluctuating pricing tiers. The final responsibility, however, remains with the user, who still has to set up and choose the programs. Systems that learn are supposed to eliminate or significantly reduce that burden. Further, current stand-alone HVAC and security systems, smart appliances, and controls will have seamless communication among themselves, learn about what the others are doing, and compare new information with what is going on in the environment. The potential for energy and resource management applications seems limitless.

Electrical and computer engineers, scientists, behavior specialists, psychologists, medical researchers, medical doctors, and industry are experimenting with sensing technology, computer algorithms, human behavior, and medical science to sort out the pieces and figure out how all this comes together in a usable integrated system that can be installed in a new or existing house. Architects, with the exception of Kent Larson, director of MIT’s PlaceLab, are absent from the university research centers.

 

The PlaceLab, an apartment-scale research facility operated by MIT and TIAX, will test and evaluate new technologies for the home. A microcontroller and light, motion, humidity, CO2, and barometric pressure sensors will be embedded in upgradable cabinetry. Photography: Courtesy MIT and Tiax

MIT has a network of related initiatives undertaken by partnerships of the Department of Architecture, the Media lab, TIAX (an independent R&D company), and a variety of corporate sponsors. PlaceLab, a smart-living laboratory, is due to open this year. It is a two-bedroom condominium in a residential building outfitted with hundreds of sensors to monitor the environment and activity within it. “The purpose of this lab, which will be inhabited by people going about their daily lives, is to study human behavior to influence design and technology,” explains Larson. “No one has ever built a lab to study humans and technology in the context of real life. This is not a demonstration house; it is a laboratory of human behavior to inform, not to demonstrate, design.”