DIEM Thesis: Launching an Open Home Automation System

Building Automation Work Package and Tampere University of Technology present a new DIEM related Master of Science thesis "Launching an Open Home Automation System" by Ville Luotonen.

Home automation systems have existed for more than 20 years. Despite that, they haven’t yet become commodities in every home. In the thesis the current state of development possibilities of the systems are studied. The purpose is to find out, whether the home automation systems have the potential to be developed as a mass product, when this could happen and how the system should be launched in order to achieve the mass product state.

In the thesis the development of home automation systems so far and factors that are crucial in becoming widespread are described. In addition to the technical point of view, the issue is approached from a commercial and user-oriented point of view. The substantial projects and associations of the field are studied in the thesis. One of the companies in the field, There Corporation, is observed more closely in the case study section. Research methods of the thesis are literature study and interviews.

Consumers are suspicious towards home automation systems and the advantages they provide. However, the widespread of the systems is becoming more realistic from many explicit directions and their development to a mass product position is probable. These directions are technological development, price reduction, standardization, legislative pressures, saving opportunities, markets yet to be conquered and the increasing trend among consumers towards embracing and benefitting from technologies. In the future, home automation system can control the interoperability between home devices in two different ways. This can be done either based on a specific home server as the center of the system or in such a way that one of the home computers expands to deal with home server type tasks. In both cases it is crucial that the interfaces of the system are sufficiently open to allow the creation of the growth and development of the device ecosystem.

The language used in the thesis is Finnish.