Noutăți și sfaturi din lumea caselor inteligente
Beside the main features, VIKI integrates some smaller ones, but with equally important benefits to our comfort.
And because for many families the kitchen is the center of the house and the place where we spend the most enjoyable moments, we cannot overlook the benefits of an automation system in this space.
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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.
We are all fascinated by technology, but this fascination goes often to the point to which we understand how things work and learn how to use it without too much hassles, and most of the times even without touching the user’s guide.
We often get asked whether VIKI the home automation system requires major changes in the configuration of the house, or if after installation will require periodic intervention from a specialist. The answer is in both cases negative.
Installing a home intelligent automation system
Whether it’s about a house under construction or a flat already compleatly furnished the installation is as simple because it does not require dedicated wiring. Depending on the configuration chosen there will be sensors that record motion, lighting, heat and humidity, and all the electrical switches and devices will be upgraded so as to communicate with the house server.
Each device in the installation kit is configured with VIKI intelligence by our technical staff, before being sent to the user’s house, according to its specifications and preferences. Installation can be done by a electrician or home security systems specialist.
Configuring the Home automation system
Certainly a home automation solution involves some changes in the daily routine of the users. Once the system is installed in your home will learn all the family members related habits regarding lights, climate and multimedia devices and know when is the right time to put them into action. Of course there is no need to quit operating the light’s swithers or the remote controlers, they will operate as before, only that now you have VIKI’s predictive intelligence .
But what happens when your routine changes completely or if there will be another member in the familly ? Will you need to turn to a specialist for reconfiguration? Of course no, because VIKI is an adaptable system that reconfigures alone with the changes they register is user’s habits.
Even if apparently installing an home automation system seems a complex process, once you established the configuration and desired facilities, integrating the system in your home is a process of maximum two days with results that are going to surprise you.
Developed with the purpose of making our time in front of the TV more enjoyable, remote controls have become absolutely essential, just too many and too often lost.
You can’t find your remote? Surely your phone or tablet are always at your fingertips where you have VIKI’s multimedia control feature from which you can control your TV, the audio system, and the home theatre.
Possibility of on / off directly from your phone or tablet tv, all available channels list and with the possibility to change them with a simple click. See the video below:
What does a smart home really mean? Can we name a ”smart” home any home with a few gadgets, like thermostats, locks and different sensors connected to a router? Is it enough to buy different online automation equipment that allows temperature control or notify us when we forget the lights on? In any of the above situations we are talking about a connected house, but not a smart house, because intelligence implies interoperability between all these devices, and not a fragmentation on criteria regarding the communication of these devices.
Moreover, it is not enough for these devices to communicate with each other, this communication must also be smart and this is what VIKI is trying to do, to create a common language while integrating various electronic devices and teaching them how to operate under its ”wand”.
A ”smart” home means a complete system for analyzing human behavior, lifestyle and events in the area, thus generating scenarios that mimic our behavior in interaction with the home, but which can also give us suggestions for improving our lifestyle. such as a shopping list, a weather warning or even dinner recipes based on the nutrition plan.
A question that arises here is related to privacy. If we are being watched 24/7 and all of our behavioral information gets stored somewhere in the cloud, how comfortable will we feel about it?
In our vision, the VIKI smart home is like a personal assistant, friendly, loyal and keeping your secrets “safe”, because it stores all the information about you in a cloud of the house, which can only be accessed by the users designated by you. Like a personal assistant, VIKI will have to be taught how to behave and what its tasks are, which is easy to do in the first weeks after installation. You just need a little consistency in learning the system, and in a few weeks you will no longer need your tablet or phone to manage things.
Therefore, a smart home like VIKI means more than just a set of smart objects, it means orchestrating them so that we can save energy, optimize costs and increase comfort.
Another VIKI functionality that brings together energy savings and confort is the lighting control.
Lights forgotten on are no longer a problem, and the right intensity adjustments depending on outside light is from now on VIKI’s task.
With smartphone or tablet, classical or touch Vitrum switches we present you a brief demonstration of lighting control function.
Moreover, you can even see how you can easily adapt the classical wall switches to operate smart under the command of VIKI.
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.
Do people want to automate their homes and which functionality of home control they would like the most? These are the two question for which we found answers among the JCI Danube Conference participants , where we have been invited to talk about VIKI in a smart city context.
The results are as we expected, 65.38% of those present take into account the installation of a home automation system in the near future . Surprisingly 7 out of 10 women said yes, they would like to live in automated home environement.
As for functionalities, the top choise was the heating control, motivated by the benefits it brings in terms of comfort, but also by the money saving benefits that we talked about in a previous article.
Door lock controlled from the mobile phone and Lighting Control follow in respondents’ preferences. Heating, Lighting, Home Acces and Multimedia are part of the first version of VIKI, which wil be released at the begining of 2016.