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Feature: Page (1) of 2 - 01/10/06

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NextGen House: Packed With New Technology

Home automation, audio and video, and security in a demo all in one place at CES

By Charlie White

In one of the most concentrated demonstrations at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a group of companies banded together to create the NextGen Home Experience. A house was constructed in the parking lot of the Las Vegas Convention Center, and stoked with the latest in high-tech home control and entertainment gear. Let's take a tour through that house, taking a look at the latest gadgets and gizmos that make up the highest of high-tech homes.

Taking a look at this NextGen house, most of the products that were on display are available now. The entire home automation system is controlled by Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, running life|ware software created by a company called Exceptional Innovation. This automation package controls a lighting system, a whole-house digital audio system, as well as a security system. In addition, it can handle an automated thermostat with zoned HVAC control and can be accessed from any Media Center PC, Xbox 360 game system or from any of the high definition touch panels that were distributed throughout the house.

Here's the outside of the NexGen Home. Its architectural style is unmistakably the Craftsman Style.

As you can see, a variety of companies helped put together the NexGen Home.

Stepping onto the porch of the house, outside there was a 42-inch flat panel plasma display, presumably so that the home's occupants could watch television on the porch, or giving guests of view of the host as he speaks to them while they look into the security camera. Not far from there was a security camera guarding the front door, whose output could be viewed on any of the touch panel screens or entertainment centers within the house.

This security camera is connected to every flat panel display and computer inside the house.

My first impression of the house was that its occupants better like watching television, because this house had flat-panel LCDs and plasma TVs all over the place. The homeowners would be able to watch television anywhere, anytime. All the televisions were equipped with Windows XP Media Center 2005, and all of the home control functions could be activated from any of these numerous television sets. 

In the house's living room/media room, there was an entertainment system that was certainly upscale. Inside was a 65-inch micro display TV, an HP digital entertainment center and Klipsch THX Ultra2 speakers, which the speakers alone cost $10,000. Needless to say, the system was capable of thundering bass and shimmering highs, although that rear-projection TV was the weakest part of the entertainment system. Also in that room was one of the numerous intelligent thermostats and computerized lighting that could be controlled automatically via the life|ware software.

These touch screens, running life|ware software on Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, are distributed throughout the house, and enable its occupants to control temperature, lighting, music and security features.

In the dining room, there was a 50-inch plasma HDTV demonstrating digital paintings just like in Bill Gates?s house, where each individual piece of artwork could be obtained online for $1.99 apiece. At the same time, soft music played through hidden speakers throughout the house, all controlled with a ZON audio controller.

Moving into the kitchen, at the kitchen sink was a unique faucet ($1100) by Brizo (a high-end subsidiary of Delta Faucet) that operated with automatic sensor control. Put your hands under the faucet, and the water flows, and remove your hands from under the faucet and the water would stop.

The Brizo representative mentioned that this would be a water saver for those who are washing dishes -- he said his company didn't usability studies and discovered that most people leave the water running the whole time there are washing dishes. With this system, whenever you put dishes under the faucet, the water begins to flow, and turned off when you move the dishes away. If you want the water to flow manually, you turn the water on or off by touching the top of the faucet, and there is also a conventional control for flow and temperature on the back of the faucet for those who are familiar with its touch-controls.

In this demonstration, notice the laptop on the counter to the left. It represented a work computer, where the same controls were on its screen that were on the touch-panel screen on the front of the oven at right.

Perhaps the highlight of the kitchen was its oven, which also functions as a refrigerator. Connected to the network with Cat-5 cable, the oven had a video control panel on its face that could also be controlled via the Internet. This $8,699 oven also functions as a refrigerator, so, for example, you could place chicken in a pan in this refrigerated oven before you go to work, and then program it to begin cooking in the afternoon, or you could manually turn on the oven from your Internet-connected computer at work. Say the chicken is in the middle of its cooking cycle and the boss comes to your desk, wanting to chat for an hour or so. You could remotely control the oven, turning down its temperature so that the chicken wouldn't be burned by the time you got home. Neat.

Lighting within the house can be grouped in scenes and controlled as a group via a touchscreen. On the bottom right is a ZON audio controller.

Lights can also be controlled individually or in scenes with these wall switch units that are distributed throughout the house.

Elsewhere in the kitchen was a sophisticated lighting system, controlled by Vantage lighting control, which can dim all the lights in the house in a variety of scenes, and is linked to the life|ware software, so that lights can be dimmed and brightened according to sunrise or sunset times, or preset scenes at designated times. The lights can also be turned on and off via motion sensors.

This Seisco on-demand water heater ($685) can save energy, and costs less than traditional water heaters. According to Seisco, it is capable of heating enough water for three showers at a time all day long.

The water heating system in the house was also highly sophisticated, with an on-demand instant heating unit heating water only when it's needed. Popular in Europe, these electric or natural gas-powered water heaters save energy by only heating the water that's being used, and not keeping water hot all the time and waiting to be used. It's possible to have one of these on-demand water heating units near eight shower, or you could have one larger unit serving the entire house.