In what is an interesting development for the home automation industry European phone Company Nokia has entered the market with a home automation offering based on Z Wave wireless technology. The system will work over both a mobile phone and PC.
The Company has said that they will ship a complete Home Control Centre solution early next year that allows users to control their home automation system through a web-enabled mobile browser.
The Company is looking for carriers such as Telstra or Vodafone to sell the solution.
The Z Wave based HCC Platform will be based on open standards in an effort to improve interoperability and eliminate the high costs normally associated with a proprietary home automation system the company said. They have also said that they want to replicate for home automation use what Google has done with their Android operating system. Key to Nokia system is the Home Control Center (HCC), a piece of hardware which will act as gateway between different systems for home automation and the mobile phone, or any device that is equipped with a browser.
Phones will talk to the HCC via an Internet connection or Wi-Fi. Nokia has developed a native client for phones running its Symbian S60 software, and a browser-based client for other devices.
Using the native client users will be able to plug the phone into the HCC with a USB cable, and everything is installed automatically. The native client will also be more responsive, and users won’t have to log in when they access their HCC, according to Kari Rantanen, director of sales and marketing at Nokia’s Smart Home Program.
Teppo Paavola, vice president and head of corporate business development at Nokia, said: “The home of today has intelligence everywhere, but to date there has not been a solution that is interoperable with wide range of home systems that can easily be controlled. We want to create an open solution where external partners can develop their own solutions and services on top of our platform. We believe that the mobile device is an ideal interface to control home intelligence, especially when the user is not at home.”
Nokia expects its platform to be taking control of homes everywhere by the end of 2009.
One of the draw backs for the offering is that any electrical devices being attached to the network has to be Z-Wave or Zigbee compliant.
Nokia expect to show a full size demonstration at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress next February in Barcelona.
