Sustainability and Smart Home awards.

Schneider Electric has announced four CES 2022 Innovation Awards across the Sustainability and Smart Home categories. Their Wiser Energy Center, anchored by the Square D™ Energy Center in the US, has been named Honoree in Sustainability and Smart Home Categories

The Wiser Energy Center helps homes contribute to today’s global sustainability goals and was named a CES 2022 Innovation Awards winner in both the Sustainability and Smart Home categories. The Wiser Energy Center is pioneering in the field of smart home sustainability. Less than 10% of homeowners believe their home is a major contributor to climate change, while research from the UN Environment Program confirms that Households consume 29% of global energy and contribute to 21% of resultant CO2 emissions.

YiFu Qi, Executive Vice-President, Home and Distribution Division, Schneider Electric, says: "CES is a place where innovation is recognized and we have the opportunity to push not only our industries, but society forward. We’re thrilled to receive four CES 2022 Innovation Awards in the two categories representing who we are today and our future. From the ability to put control into the hands of homeowners globally with the Wiser Energy Center to the incredible ingenuity of the Merten Ocean Plastic and Odace Sustainable, we are making sustainability a reality for people around the world and living up to our vision of making homes smart and sustainable.”

This new generation of home electrical panel controls the energy needs of connected devices from one place. And with the help of AI-enabled algorithms, it transforms homes from smart to smart and sustainable. By combining the power of the Wiser Energy Center and Wiser software, consumers gain full control over how energy is produced, stored and distributed in the home. It optimizes the allocation of energy, and can also detect renewable energy sources, switching to use these at the most optimal time of the day.

Merten Ocean Plastic Named Honoree in Sustainability Category
Merten is a market leader in the field of electrical innovation and design. With the launch of the ocean plastic model and collaboration with DSM, Schneider Electric is shaping the future of sustainability by being the first in the market to offer home electrical solutions made from recycled ocean plastics.

According to the United Nations, more than 8 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean, harming marine wildlife, fisheries and causing irreversible damage to ecosystems. Abandoned fishing nets are a significant part of this problem, accounting for 10% of all plastic waste found in the sea. The Merten ocean plastic helps combat this issue and promotes a circular economy by repurposing collected nets and giving them a new life.

Odace Sustainable Smart Switches & Plugs are a Sustainability Category Honoree
The new Odace Sustainable collection from Schneider Electric is a collection of stylish, smart switch and plug solutions for the home. Created from recycled materials collected from electrical drop-off centers and super-markets, waste plastics enter a circular economy loop using a waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) recycling system, transforming discarded materials into new products.

With Odace Sustainable, consumers help to eliminate single-use plastic and give waste plastic a second life. Made from almost 100% recycled sources, this new product from Schneider Electric marks a significant step forward in reducing carbon emissions and landfill waste.

• Schneider Electric’s Home of the Future exhibition, featuring each of the sustainability-focused innovations may be seen at CES 2022, Hall C, Booth 53214 (5/8 Jan 2022 Las Vegas NV USA).

@SchneiderNA @CES #SmartHome #Sustainability

Smart home automation.

A robust roadmap for its Matter-compliant smart home solutions, committing to being among the first group of Matter-compliant devices immediately after the standard is approved has been announced by Schneider Electric. The company also plans to bridge its Wiser smart home ecosystem with Matter-connected systems by the same time.

As a board member of the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) and an active contributor to the Matter protocol development, Schneider believes that interoperability is the key for homes and buildings of the future. Matter builds upon market-proven technologies and best practices, and is the industry-unifying standard that aims to simplify connected experiences and provide greater interoperability in smart homes and buildings. By integrating technologies such as renewable energy generation and EV charging that are rapidly being adopted, Matter compliance can help in supporting the Schneider Electric sentiment around the sustainable future for our homes, and help pave a pathway to self-sufficient, net zero homes, while reducing e-waste and improving circularity.

The Schneider Electric Matter implementation roadmap includes:

1. Innovating to create Matter-compliant smart home products. Schneider Electric will become one of the first few companies in the world to offer native Matter solutions.
2. Bridging to connect existing and new systems. The Wiser smart home ecosystem ensures Matter compliance while retaining native Zigbee connectivity. Existing and new Wiser devices based on Zigbee will join the Matter ecosystem using the ‘bridge’ functionality of upgraded Wiser Hubs*, ensuring a sustainable approach where the installed base of devices do not become obsolete with the arrival of the new standard.
3. Advocating for more Matter-compliant interoperability with others. Making interoperability and usage of products easier for consumers starts with industry wide collaboration to include Matter as a connectivity standard in the Wiser App.

“By ensuring smart home technology supports Matter – anticipated to be a widely accepted connectivity language – we will achieve much more than device compatibility and effortless comfort for the homeowner,” said Jai Thampi, SVP for Strategy and Innovation in the Home and Distribution Division, Schneider Electric.  “Interoperability among connected products will be at the heart of making our homes, offices, and entire cities more sustainable, more energy efficient, and more resilient in the face of the global threat of climate change. I firmly believe that Matter is an important project for the future of smart home, and we are committed to making it successful in the long run, while innovating at scale. Open, global standards such as Matter are essential for improving consumer experience, while ensuring a smart and sustainable connected future.”

@SchneiderUKI @SchneiderElec @csaiot @matter_cloud #Automation #Domestic

Smart energy saving in the home!

An entirely new range of easy-to-use energy saving products that could help to reduce energy bills in households by as much as 20%1 in a simple yet effective way has been launched by Energenie.

The Mi|Home range of adapters and monitors, allows greater control over heating, lighting and electrical appliances that is truly accessible to everyone.

Working remotely through either an iOS and Android app or a PC, users can simply scan the Gateway with their phone and immediately begin using the central hub of the system to control the full range of easy-to-use retrofit actuators.

The modularity of the system means that users can add products as and when they want, in the knowledge it will be compatible with existing products in the home, and provide a strategic and cost-effective way to gauge energy use and expenditure.

The Mi|Home range can monitor the energy usage of individual sockets, groups or scenes in real-time or over time to see which devices consume the most power and should be turned off.

Its Smart features mean users can easily set timers and programmes to fit Mi|Home into their schedule, while geofencing enables control of the products from a remote location and IFTTT means triggers can be anything from the weather to Facebook.

Oliver Tadd, commercial director at Energenie: said: "Mi|Home gives consumers back control over their energy consumption. Once the devices have been installed, it allows households to change their energy usage as well as shifting their behaviour towards consuming less energy.

“Through the Internet of Things, the devices can be linked to other devices in the home and applications within them talk to each other.

“With low installation costs and the best value entry model considered cost-effective given it’s a modular system, households can choose elements from a range of devices depending on the need.

“For example, zoned-controlled heating when it’s cool in the morning, or lighting in rooms that are only occupied at night. The devices could even be used to turn your washing machine on, or your oven off, straight from an iphone or PC when you are out of the house.”

Small Data versus Big data!

GreenPeak Technologies, has produced a new white paper, "Sentrollers, and the World of Small Data" (pdf), that details how Small Data, the tiny bits of information collected from billions of small sentrollers (sensors, controllers and actuators) in homes, offices, factories, cars, in all corners of the environment, will create a repository of information that will transform lives and generate entire new business sectors. Unlike Big Data, mostly generated for or from web search, advertising and marketing decisions, Small Data is collected from real life: where people are, what they are doing and how they are doing it.

“It is not just the smart home – it is becoming a smart world,” says Cees Links, CEO of GreenPeak. “Currently, with about ten internet-connected devices in each home, we are now in the Internet of People. As the web truly becomes the Internet of Things, it will be machines talking to machines – guided by human intelligence and algorithms – all living in the cloud – making our lives easier. As our homes become smarter, we can expect upwards of hundred different affordably priced sentrollers in each house that will provide actionable intelligence that help make our environments safer and more ecological, controlling power consumption, as well as monitoring our health and customizing our homes to our needs and preferences.”

“Small Data will control our businesses, homes, and even our cars and robots – all of which will define the world of tomorrow. Focusing on Small Data now could help to keep us from being overwhelmed by it later and assure we will benefit from the massive rush to the Internet of Things,” says Rob Enderle, Principal Analyst, Enderle Group. “With all of the focus on Big Data, much of which is unstructured, we’ve forgotten about the Internet of Things problem of Small Data which has far more files, uses a variety of structures, and requires just as much analysis.”

As the current Internet of People transforms into the much larger, more omniscient Internet of Things, the number of connected devices will explode exponentially, generating large databases of information about the daily lives of people worldwide. This data explosion will create a wide range of benefits for health monitoring, for efficiency, for comfort, but at the same time, will create serious challenges in the areas of privacy, security and commercial/government intrusion.

According to Cees Links, “Smart devices are an important step towards a world where machines watch over us and make our lives better, while improving the way we are using the earth’s energy and precious resources. Yes, it is a bit scary, with Big Brother seemingly around the corner, but with the right controls and policies in place to protect the individual’s Small Data, the benefits will greatly override the paranoia.”

High growth smart home sensors...

USI, Universal Scientific (Shanghai) Industrial Co. Ltd, a leading global expert in the design and manufacturing of wireless module solutions, has joined forces with GreenPeak Technologies, the industry leading Smart Home low-power radio communication semi-conductor company, to develop a high performance and low cost ZigBee module for Smart Home sensor devices.

The new USI ZigBee module enables a swift implementation with minimal integration efforts for a quick time to market. The module allows Smart Home device developers and manufacturers to quickly and economically upgrade their sensor devices by adding ZigBee technology.

The USI ZigBee module is a pre-qualified building block that integrates hardware with the ZigBee networking technology necessary to transform thermostats, motion sensors, lighting, smart plugs and other sentrollers into interactive Smart Home ZigBee devices. The ready-to-go module includes both hardware and software tools required for a quick time to market, is FCC certified, and includes guidelines and tools to ensure efficient product certification. It is available as a bare module with small form factor, allowing compact integration in existing designs and supports interfacing directly to a sensing component or a host processor.

“Adding a ZigBee module to our portfolio will help device developers who do not have ZigBee expertise in house to speed time to market” says Albert Liu of USI’s Wireless Product Business Unit. “We expect ZigBee will grow quickly in the Smart Home application market. By offering a production-ready and pre-certified ZigBee module, we can significantly help reduce the cost, complexity and time of designing ZigBee connected devices. We have chosen the GreenPeak silicon because it is the best in class ZigBee solution available today and because we know GreenPeak as a reliable business partner.”

According to Cees Links, CEO of GreenPeak: “This module approach offers the optimal combination of cost-efficiency, ease of integration and performance. Device manufacturers are keen to bring ZigBee connectivity and interactivity to their sensor and actuator products. They can use the module for prototyping, for a ZigBee product launch, or for test marketing purposes. As ZigBee continues to gain market momentum in the Smart home and the IoT, the module will allow further adaption for various applications and consumer electronic products that have previously been restricted by volumes. We are proud to have our chip in the USI modules and excited to work with USI, the world’s largest WiFi module manufacturer today, with an unmatched track record in wireless module manufacturing.”

Smart home automation

Latest additions to home automation system on display

Carlo Gavazzi will be showing a new colour touch screen addition to the smart-house range at the forthcoming British Home Technology Event (28/30 June'11 London GB)  The new 7 inch panel features colour touch screen technology and is based on the windows CE 6.0 platform.

The touch screen displays can be positioned around the home and can be customised to suit each home owner’s requirements.  Every aspect of the smart-house system can be controlled from one or more screens.  Functions include one-touch lighting control with scene setting and heating management with individual room temperatures displayed allowing access to set points plus a multifunction time scheduler.  Access to the internet is also possible making this screen a very flexible addition to the smart-house range.

smart-house system
The Carlo Gavazzi smart-house home automation system provides a cost effective solution for automating any home, now and for the future. Wiring is simple, using the same two-wire bus that communicates between components to also supply the power. Popular features include lighting control to set scenes and activating lights by motion or light intensity. Blinds and curtains can open and close automatically at the end of each day and can also be included in lighting scenarios.  Heating can be controlled in individual rooms to save energy.

Dedicated detectors for smoke and intruders can be configured to make the house lights flash, sound an alarm and send a text message, water detectors can protect against flooding by shutting off the water supply to the house.  Automation can also be extended to the garden for path lighting, gate control, irrigation systems and pool covers. All aspects of the system can be controlled and viewed locally on wall mounted touch screens and high-end remote controls (Philips Pronto) or remotely by internet or mobile phone.

Aurora Home Automation Accessories
The Aurora range combines aesthetics with technology for home automation applications. Powered from the smart-house two-wire bus, they come in a 44mm square format, designed to fit directly into popular back plate designs.

This aesthetically pleasing range currently includes light switches, temperature controllers and infra-red detector.  All products are supplied with white or charcoal grey covers to provide high quality visually pleasing control for all home automation systems.