Then again, vendors have been promising smart homes for a really long time, with few results.
Coming: 3D, holograms, media anywhere, smart homes, smart cities, machine talking to machines, among other things.
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Smart homes, or residences wired with home automation, have been around for years.
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"Today's smart homes and smart devices deserve a smart home network, " said Brett Wingo, vice president and general manager, Cisco Home Networking.
Smart homes are able to greet their occupants and adjust the interior accordingly, and, of course, cars are able to drive themselves.
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The most powerful 32-bit microcontrollers can also run several programs at once and network effectively with other microcontrollers, making smart homes a possibility.
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Wireless networks are a key building block for smart homes, since they enable devices to talk to each other, and to the internet, without the need to run cables all over the place.
The smart concrete homes of Salvapan, with swings in neat gardens, are a class above the clapboard houses in the creole south side of Belize City.
"StreamBoost provides users with advanced control over their home networks to enable the first truly smart, connected homes, " said Frank Azor, general manager, Alienware.
So why isn't everyone installing smart meters in homes and businesses?
This investment will place Smart Meters in homes to make our energy bills lower, make outages less likely and make it easier to use clean energy.
Just 1% of smart meter-equipped homes in California have such programs, according to the California PUC.
Some of the recent trials of trying to integrate smart grid technologies into homes have flopped too.
Not too far into the future, it may become commonplace for people to run common functions in their homes using their smart phones.
In August, there will be an additional 100 -- excuse me, 1 million homes that will have smart meters attached to them.
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In some parts of the country, utilities have already begun to install so-called "smart meters" in people's homes.
Exelon ( EXC - news - people ), plans to put 8, 000 customers on real-time pricing among the 131, 000 homes it plans to equip with smart meters by next year.
In addition to the energy benefits directly received from the latest product offerings of Ford, Eaton, SunPower and Whirlpool, the widespread deployment of smart meters (now in more than 40 million homes across the U.S.) enables households to take advantage of off-peak rates.
The Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town will consist of a targeted 1, 000 homes spread over 19 hectares.
Here's how it works: Utilities install GridPoint boxes in homes and businesses that essentially become nodes in a smart electric grid.
The government announced the plan to install smart meters to monitor electricity and gas consumption in 26 million homes earlier this year.
The nation's utilities have embraced the concept and are installing millions of automated meters on homes across the country, the first phase in Smart Grid's deployment.
As part of its smart-grid activities, aimed at achieving a low-carbon society through efficient energy use, TMC is conducting trials in Japan of its Toyota Smart Center pilot program, which plans to link people, automobiles and homes for integrated control of energy consumption.
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There would also be smaller turbines, possibly vertical ones, perched on our homes, steadily and reliably complementing our solar panels and contributing to a smart grid which in turn powered our food and factory production and transportation networks.
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That money is spent giving back to SEC and ACC schools, supporting Winshape Homes (a Chick-Fil-A charity) and funding the Play It Smart program in Atlanta Public Schools, amongst other things.
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