Smart home
The term 'smart' is typically applied to an 'intelligent' web-connected electronic device or system which may operate stand-alone or in a network with other devices. It usually involves some form of user interaction.
New technology is enabling the creation of smart homes, integrating devices to make the home a better place to be in terms of safety, comfort, productivity and well-being. Smart thermostats note, for example, each time the dial is turned up or down, to build a detailed schedule based on the user’s preferences.
BSRIA (Building Services Research and Information Association) defines smart homes as those operating, ‘…a building control system, which provides integrated, centralised control of two or more individual systems’. Effectively this is the residential extension of commercial type controls.
Individual systems can be any of the following:
- Environmental control system (heating ventilation and air conditioning - HVAC).
- Household appliances (clothes dryers, washing machines, refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, ovens, coffee-makers, microwaves, etc.)
- Consumer electronics (TV, radio, audio-video equipment, game consoles, etc.)
- Building components (blinds, curtains, windows, doors, etc.).
Devices may be connected through a wired or wireless network to allow control via a personal computer, and may allow remote access via the internet using a PC, smartphone or tablet.
These smart products typically incorporate user-friendly operation, for example, displaying green symbols when energy is being saved and red when excessive amounts are being consumed.
If the smart home system is accessible remotely via the internet, BSRIA refers to it as a 'connected home'.
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings
- Active system.
- A smart home can be a healthy home too.
- Building management systems.
- Consumer electronics.
- Engineering Smart Cities.
- European connected and smart home market.
- Information and communications technology.
- Internet of things.
- Making a house a home.
- PAS 180:2014 Smart cities – Vocabulary.
- PAS 181:2014 Smart city Framework. Guide to establishing strategies for smart.
- PAS 182 Smart city data concept model.
- Post-pandemic home design.
- Smart buildings.
- Smart cities design timeframe.
- Smart cities.
- Smart city.
- Smart home and light commercial market in 2017.
- Smart technology.
- The global smart homes market.
- The smart buildings market.
Featured articles and news
CLC and BSR process map for HRB approvals
One of the initial outputs of their weekly BSR meetings.
Building Safety Levy technical consultation response
Details of the planned levy now due in 2026.
Great British Energy install solar on school and NHS sites
200 schools and 200 NHS sites to get solar systems, as first project of the newly formed government initiative.
600 million for 60,000 more skilled construction workers
Announced by Treasury ahead of the Spring Statement.
The restoration of the novelist’s birthplace in Eastwood.
Life Critical Fire Safety External Wall System LCFS EWS
Breaking down what is meant by this now often used term.
PAC report on the Remediation of Dangerous Cladding
Recommendations on workforce, transparency, support, insurance, funding, fraud and mismanagement.
New towns, expanded settlements and housing delivery
Modular inquiry asks if new towns and expanded settlements are an effective means of delivering housing.
Building Engineering Business Survey Q1 2025
Survey shows growth remains flat as skill shortages and volatile pricing persist.
Construction contract awards remain buoyant
Infrastructure up but residential struggles.
Home builders call for suspension of Building Safety Levy
HBF with over 100 home builders write to the Chancellor.
CIOB Apprentice of the Year 2024/2025
CIOB names James Monk a quantity surveyor from Cambridge as the winner.
Warm Homes Plan and existing energy bill support policies
Breaking down what existing policies are and what they do.
Treasury responds to sector submission on Warm Homes
Trade associations call on Government to make good on manifesto pledge for the upgrading of 5 million homes.
A tour through Robotic Installation Systems for Elevators, Innovation Labs, MetaCore and PORT tech.
A dynamic brand built for impact stitched into BSRIA’s building fabric.
BS 9991:2024 and the recently published CLC advisory note
Fire safety in the design, management and use of residential buildings. Code of practice.