Smart Home Challenges

­A smart home probably sounds like a nightmare to those people not comfortable with computers. Those who routinely fumble around with a remote control just trying to change the television channel might have stopped reading by now.

It may be your fear that if you try to turn on the television in your smart home, lights will start flashing, and this does happen occasionally. (Power outages, however, activate backup battery and safe mode, which means you can still perform tasks like unlocking a door manually). One of the challenges of installing a smart home system is balancing the complexity of the system against the usability of the system. When planning the system, it's important to consider a few factors:

• How large will the system be?
• What kinds of components are part of the system? Are they basic, such a light dimmer, or more imposing, like an alarm system or a video camera?
• How intuitive will the system be to a non-user?
• How many people will be required to use the system?
• Who will know how to operate the system? Who will know how to maintain the system and address failures? How often will people who can only operate the system be left alone in the home?
• How easy is it to make changes to the interface? For example, if your house is programmed to wake you up at 7 a.m., how will you let it know that you're away overnight on business or sleeping in on a Saturday?

For these reasons, it may be easier to start with a very basic home network and expand as enhancements are needed or desired. However, there's some concern that with the market so new, technologies are developing all the time, sometimes leaving old versions of products useless. If you invest too soon, you may end up with a model that has impossible-to-find components and spare parts. Like many new technologies, smart homes require a significant investment to keep up.

Smart homes also come with some security concerns. Hackers who access the network will have the ability to turn off alarm systems and lights, leaving the home vulnerable to a break-in, or the theft could be more electronic. If music is saved on a hard drive so that it can be played around the house, make sure that sensitive information, such as passwords or identifying numbers, are saved elsewhere.

Some smart home devices also raise ethical questions about privacy, or evoke an Orwellian feeling of "Big Brother." It's great to be able to check in on a four-year-old in his room while you're cooking dinner in the kitchen, but how will that child feel when he's constantly monitored through puberty? The information that a smart home collects might start to feel like a weapon to a teenager who gets caught sneaking in after a late-night party. When setting up a smart home, it's a good idea to discuss it with the whole family first.

Of course, there's also the question of whether an individual needs all this technology. Is our society really so lazy that we can't turn flip a light switch? It's an interesting argument, but smart homes are coming. The good news is that with all the time we save from home automation, we'll have time to work on other pursuits. Like developing robot maids.

To learn more about smart homes, visit the links on the next page.