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The VIKI team has started a series of meetings-seminars, in order to introduce this smart home automation system to those interested – architects, builders, specialists etc., decision makers from companies with an interest in promoting / VIKI installation / design.
A first meeting has already taken place, and some of the participants were later able to visit a “VIKI site”, a house where the system is currently being installed.
Continue reading “Meet VIKI!” »
After a 2016/2017 winter with many nights and days below 15 degrees Celsius, we can draw some conclusions about the use of thermostatic heads to control heating on radiators, connected to a classic apartment boiler.
Both Danfoss Living Connect and Stella Z are robust products in terms of manufacturing, with an obvious design gain for Danfoss. This, through the LCD screen on which you can view the temperature and the status signaling icons, as well as the manual temperature adjustment buttons, brings an extra ease to use.
Continue reading “Should we automate the central heating with DANFOSS LIVING CONNECT Z or Stella Z Eurotronic?” »
The house of the future is the house where technology blends harmoniously with your lifestyle, ensuring a perfect balance between comfort and relaxation. Designed for the whole family, VIKI technology is more than “home automation”, it means an intelligent system that constantly learns, becoming through its unique functions a “virtual butler” of the house.
Continue reading “The smart home: 10 ways VIKI can improve your life” »
Having a virtual assistant attributions, installing a smart home system may seem a complex and difficult process, but not if we are speaking about VIKI.
One of VIKI’s particularities is the fact that it is easy to install and configure. Thanks to the learning and the imitation of the human behaviour algorithms, the system is automaticaly adapting to the changes in the environment where it is installed, without needing a manual reconfiguration of the settings every time the family makes changes in its preferences.
The solution may be installed in new or finished houses, using a wireless technology that does not require special cabling.
Sensors and access control equipment are able to function on network energy or batteries with a 4 months to 2 years life, depending on the chosen type.
Once the system is installed in your home it will learn all the habits of family members related to lighting, climate and multimedia devices and know when to put them into action, and when the daily routine of the family is changing, the system reconfigures itself with the changes it register.
If until recently the home automation systems were considered science fiction, they are becoming now more and more present into our lives. Managing to control and monitor almost all the technological devices we use in a house, either we are at home or kilometers away, they bring significant benefits in what concernes the energy savings.
How many times has it happened to forget the lights or the heat turned on while leaving home? Our intelligent home automation system now allows not only to continuously monitor the status and to turn on/off from the phone all the electonical smart devices, but will learn your program, it will know when you came or leave the home, and therefore will heat the house at the right temperature, and will turn it off when the house is empty. In addition to the results in savings , such a solution eliminates concerns and gives the users peace of mind.
But much of the electricity is consumed while we are at home and without us realizing it. Whether we move from room to room and forget the light on, whether we find another activity while the TV remains on in another room, a smart home will know when it is time to close them due to motion sensors that identify the presence or absence of users in a certain room.
With the touch of a button, the tools to maximize the energy efficiency of the house are now within everyone’s reach. Technology that recently we could see only in movies is now here and besides comfort and entertainment brings the possibility of an economy of resources.
In a recent article we were mentioning the fact that although the installation of a home automation system it may seem a complex process, in fact it requires an activity of one or two days and a few minor adjustments.
But what are the components that make a smart home functional?
The first to be mentioned is the home server that orchestrate the communication between all electronic 
devices controling lighting, heating, or multimedia, by using VIKI’ s intelligence.
This “brain” of the house is called VIKI Central Unit.
To intelligently control the heating we recommend a kit consisting of a LCD radiator thermostat and an actuator for the central heating system,
and for the hot summer days when we need to remotely start the air conditioning , it will be possible via the dedicated Z-Wave controller.
In addition to the classic motion detection function the multi sensors measure the ambient temperature and the light intensity, all this information being then forwarded to the home server which will implement actions according to our previous settings.
In what concernes our home security, the sensors that have been mounted on the doors and windows will alert us if we forget them opened when we live home,
or when we prepare for sleep. Also a security alert, the flood sensor is particularly useful for our peace of mind when we leave home for longer period.
Smoke sensors, actuators for switches and other electronic devices which can be controlled via VIKI functionalities are available on http://vikiknows.com/tested_equipment.php.
If until now we have talked about the ways in which VIKI can improve our lifestyle and the time we spend at home, you should know that we are implementing a solution even for those who travel a lot. The goal: to feel like home anywhere; The name: MnemoniQ.
Be it a hotel or vacation home where you often go with your family, now it’s very easy to take your home automation preferences with you. If at home you’re accustomed to a certain temperature, light settings or a relaxing audio ambience while dinning, using MnemoniQ you can have the same facilities wherever you go.
With this feature, the preferences that VIKI had learned and applied at home can be replicated by means of the smartphone to another location, where it will operate identically. The only condition is to have a VIKI system installed in that location too.
“HOME is where VIKI is!“ is not just a status, but rather a purpose for VIKI – to give you the best experience at home or wherever you might go.
In less than 10 years a typical family house will contain somewhere around 200 smart objects, from the refrigerator to the washing machine, all devices with a certain level of “intelligence” and “communication skills”.
The solution for the control of all of the device’s is not a specific application for each device but rather one solution that controls everything and which anticipates your action and your preferences based on your previous behavior – a Connected Home
From here arises the need for home automation, a need that did not exist until now and that is why it was difficult for the industry to develop. Although the home automation solutions have emerged more than 20 years, there is still a small percentage of the population using them.
But with the significant growth of electronics and the gadgets we buy, intelligent home control is a must, as confirmed by the studies below:
“How the next evolution of the Internet is changing everything” the Cisco report which highlights the fact that by 2020 there will be about 7 internet connected devices per capita.
And according to Strategy Analytics, 30% of Western Europe homes will hold by 2019 a certain degree of inteligence. What the people who look for an automation solution consider as essential? Firstly the safty of their homes and the energy efficiecy.
The Smart Home report results performed on a sample of 1,600 people in the US and Canada confirms this:
As one of the first developers of smart homes in Romania, we are delighted by the fact that we managed to raise attention and to make people want to benefit from a smart home solution.
One of the most appreciated features of an automation system is certainly the possibility of a better management of the house heating.
Finding the house always at the prefered temperature, controling the heating from your smartphone even when you’re not home, smart zoning, auto standby mode when you leave the house and forget to stop temperature are just some of the “skills” that VIKI has.
I’m coming home
Neither too warm nor too cold, when you arrive home the house environment must be at a optimal temperature. This was our starting point when we design the “I’m coming home” feature with which you can announce the house that you’re on the way home directly from your phone. VIKI will start to adjust the temperature automatically, so when you arrive home it will be just how you expected.
Smart Zoning
Once you get home you have the possibility to program different temperatures for each room and you can do that either from your phone, your tablet or the smart thermostat mounted directly on each radiator. Furthermore, VIKI will remember your preferences and it will replicate them without you being always concerned about starting and stopping the heat.
Smart Living
Intelligent control also means and effective management of the resources. There are 3 features linked to VIKI’s heating intelligent control, which will guarantee a lower heat consumption by up to 30%.
Standby Mode: when in a room is not recorded activity for more than 2 hours, VIKI turns off the heat and will maintain it around 18-20 degrees. In other rooms where you make your presence felt it will maintain it at the desired value.
Away Mode: there no need to ask yourself if you switched off or not the heat, when you left for office in the morning. Once VIKI has registered that everyone left the home, will switch to Away mode, which means that for 8 or 10 hours while nobody’s home it will keep the temperature at an average of 15-18 degrees.
Vacation mode: if between 48 to72 hours the system does not record any activity in the house, it will automatically switch to holiday mode maintain the required temperature for plant survival, assuming you went on vacation and forgot to announce it.
VIKI’s temperatures and scheduling scenarios can be adjusted according to your preferences, and you can change yourself, without needing the intervention of a specialist.
We all agree that the house automation systems can bring to our homes benefits regarding our comfort and security, but there are few aspects that one has to question before acquiring such a product. We might call them problems of the home automation industry, but here’s VIKI and it might be the solution.
1. Most home automation systems are designed for houses under construction.
That is not the case for VIKI, which works both on wired and wireless technology. The system can be installed without major changes in any building, be it an already furnished apartment or a house under construction.
2. Changing the default user’s settings and preferences, always require resorting to the specialists who installed the automation system.
Most automation solutions are being configured when installed with the preferences in terms of lighting, climate or irrigation that the users have at the moment. But what if this preferences change over time? Normally one has to appeal to those who have installed the solution, wait for their intervention and most likely pay an extra cost for this service.
VIKI is a proactive solution that adapts to the behavior of the house inhabitants and change with it. All you have to do is give it a few days to memorize the settings you do manually, and after that it will automatically learn what should do. If you prefer after a while a different temperature, or diverse music in different rooms, you can set it by yourself and the solution will learn it.
3. Too many different automation applications or too many remote controls.
Even if you already own certain automation systems for automating gates, blinds, or even mobile applications that control heating and lighting, the goal of an intelligent and effective home control is a unique application from which you can control your entire house.
VIKI aims to be the brain of your home, offering not only the intelligent control functions, but due to the adaptative algorithms it generates savings on electricity and heat and the comfort and pleasure to stay at home, all in one single application.