Get smart

One day, having a home wired to handle the latest in technology will be as vital as having indoor plumbing. Today's smart homes allow you to do everything from warming up (or cooling off) the house just before you get home to showing you the videocam view of your kitchen from your computer at work. You can have TV, movies and music piped throughout your home, share data between home computers, save on energy costs, and control your home's lights, security system, appliances and more from virtually anywhere.

But with rapid changes in technology, how do you know what to look for when choosing a smart home? According to the Home Automation & Networking Association (www.homeautomation.org), today's homes should have four pair twisted pair telephone wire (category 5 preferred), a type of cable that consists of two independently insulated wires twisted around one another. One wire carries the signal while the other is grounded and absorbs signal interference. A smart home also should have a dual-shielded coaxial cable that is "home run" (running all the wires together vertically through a central PVC pipe). This lets home automation systems specialists easily access the right kind of wire for repairs or future installations.

Contractors specializing in automation can install systems (visit www.smart-house.com for more information). Keyword search the website of the Continental Automated Buildings Association (www.caba.org) for the latest news on home automation. If you are a do-it-yourselfer, visit www.smarthome.com to see hundreds of home automation products.

With this kind of wiring in place, you'll be prepared for the smart home options of tomorrow. At Georgia Tech's Broadband Institute Residential Laboratory, researchers are exploring the next generation of home automation. The three-story house at the corner of 10th and Center streets is filled with a broad range of communication technologies being used to examine how older people can be safer and more independent using technology, among other research projects.

By filling an older person's house with sensors and computers, distant relatives and healthcare professionals can make sure the resident is doing well. With easy-to-use communications devices throughout the house, older people can stay connected with their families each day. They even can get reminders about important tasks (like taking medicine) or finding objects that are frequently lost, like keys and glasses. The latter is done with small radio-frequency tags attached to each object and a long-range indoor positioning system.

Activities of the people living in the Residential Laboratory are monitored by video, audio, motion and load sensors. For example, researchers create footstep profiles of each user and place force-measuring sensors in selected floor tiles that can identify who is walking and in which direction they are heading. If Mom starts walking more slowly, the system can notify her relatives so they can check on her.

Within the next decade, these technologies may allow Mom to stay in her home longer and her loved ones to have greater peace of mind. As baby boomers age, more buyers will be looking for homes that are wired to take advantage of these leading technologies.