The atmosphere determines the climate

People’s habits affect their lifestyles. The way they decorated their houses over time and what their preferences were would provide an interesting historico-cultural insight. Yet regardless of people’s changing interior decoration choices over the years, some basic needs remain the same.
One of these is the desire for warmth and comfort. People generally react sensitively to what is rather clumsily termed “atmosphere” since it relates to unknown processes. On entering a room, you are somehow aware of whether you feel comfortable or not, even before finding out the reasons for the way you feel. Professor Gernot Böhme, a physicist and philosopher at Darmstadt Technical University, has attempted to specify “atmosphere” more clearly. He defines atmosphere as “the relationship between ambient qualities and a person’s feeling of wellbeing or otherwise”.

Such theoretical considerations are a starting point for scientists and technicians to design new living environments which both meet the need for comfort and incorporate and further develop technical achievements in ecological and cost-saving terms.

The future for house and home is called networking

What will our homes look like in ten or twenty years? Further advances in the use of technology can be expected. Every year new technical applications change our living environment, with the result that things which until only recently seemed to be mere utopian visions by futurologists will soon be the present.

These utopias are called the “networked home”, “intelligent home” or “smart home”. These are terms used to describe efforts to enable domestic technical terminal devices – the washing machine, home entertainment system, alarm, PC, solar power and ventilation system, central heating, utility meters etc. – to communicate with each other with the minimum of interfaces, i.e. creating a kind of domestic intranet. In other words, it is intended that people will make greater use of technology by treating it more than ever before as an inconspicuous, highly efficient spirit which is there to serve. For example, a digital display in your car could let you know whether the remote-controlled cooker at home has been left on. There are three good reasons for what sounds like a toy for gadget freaks: firstly, the aim is to use information and communications technology to create greater convenience and comfort, the “Home-sweet-home feeling”, without causing any more work for anyone. Secondly, the goal is to save energy and costs by means of the intelligent flow of information. And finally – as illustrated by the example with the cooker – safety is to be increased.

It is essential that the functionalities of a “smart home” operate unobtrusively in the background and that no feelings of powerlessness arise should anything fail to work, but rather that the technology will largely run automatically yet nonetheless with the option for customising.

A whole range of possible scenarios is already available you come home, the lights go on at your chosen level, the bathwater is run, the coffee machine starts up, you then go into the living room and say “News, please”, at which a projection screen is lowered. In Japan there is already said to be a toilet which analyses the user’s health after use. Afraid that someone will break in while you’re away on holiday? You can program the lights and blinds to simulate an occupied house. Want to save energy? Units with high energy consumption can be automatically switched on when the costs are lower. Such functions are activated via simple speech commands. Domestic products or groceries can be ordered from dealers using touchscreen terminals with an integral scanner.

Technology must address different needs

It’s well known that not everything that is technically feasible is also sensible. And people’s needs vary, too. Some would prefer to lower the blinds themselves by hand, perhaps because they find it rather eerie if everything occurs automatically, as if a ghost were at work. Possibly they feel they are having their decision-making role taken over by technology. Most technicians, futurologists and social scientists are aware of this issue. Scientific studies have been conducted on this subject. The Berlin Institute for Social Research (BIS) has carried out research into indicators for technology acceptance. These show that the market success of technical equipment depends on the possibility of its integration in the day-to-day activities and lifestyle of the individual. Smart home options for the following application fields were identified:

1. Household/day-to-day organisation
2. Information/communications
3. Provision of daily requirements/care
4. Education/training
5. Entertainment/leisure
6. Safety/security
7. Mobility
(Source: www.bis-berlin.de)

Various projects have been set up to test the options for “intelligent living”. One of these is the “Innovationszentrum Intelligentes Haus Duisburg”, or “inHaus” for short.
This is a kind of research laboratory consisting of a house, a workshop, a networked vehicle and a networked garden. The aim is to network ideas, technologies, products and activities and to observe the actual practicability of this networking with regard to everyday needs. Researchers hope to find answers to the following questions: what data transfer standards will prevail? How can what is technically feasible be used meaningfully? What do the residents actually want? To find that out requires the services of guinea pigs. There is a terraced house in the Swiss village of Hünenberg which has been declared an “Internet house”. A “model family” can live in it free of charge for three years, though on condition that they take on responsibility for the upkeep, maintenance and testing of the technical installations. They are filmed by a webcam whose images are posted on the Internet at www.futurelife.ch.