To your average Silicon Valley engineer, the reason is obvious: lack of standards.
The problem is that different home automation products use different, incompatible and often proprietary technologies to make their magic happen. If you buy two products from two companies, they usually won’t work together. Standards groups like Z-Wave and Zigbee Alliance have attempted to create industrywide standards but have been ineffective so far.
The computer technology companies are now rushing into this vacuum of standards to provide them. Leading the charge is none other than Microsoft. Best known as the maker of the Windows operating system for personal computers, Microsoft views the entire home as a “computer” and is creating an operating system for it.
Microsoft’s HomeOS, as it's called, is designed to bring law and order to the lawless frontier that is home automation. Perhaps best of all, there are indications that Microsoft's HomeOS will support existing standards, so even home automation products already purchased may work with HomeOS.
How does HomeOS work?
Most of us don’t have to think about what makes a computer system succeed, but Microsoft does.
Computers have an operating system, which is software that orchestrates interaction between the hardware and the application software. For example, you are reading this with a web browser or in a mobile app, both of which are application software programs. This software doesn’t actually put these words on your screen. It sends requests to the operating system, which conjures up all the elements required to display text and photographs on a screen.
In fact, many of the things that application software appears to do are in fact done by the operating system.
That’s one of the biggest benefits of Microsoft’s HomeOS. Many of the jobs that home-automation appliances might want to do can be done by HomeOS. Instead of every appliance maker and software maker reinventing the wheel, they can simply make requests of the HomeOS and have the job done for them.
That means a small company can create an appliance much more easily and reliably. Let’s say, for example, that a company wants to make and sell a lamp that dims when the TV is on. Instead of having to create the technology to know when the TV is on, the lamp maker can simply use the published instructions for HomeOS for being informed by the system when the TV is on.
A standardized platform promotes the automation of homes by making it easier for companies to make home automation products.
The idea is that Microsoft will try to convince home-automation companies to create both hardware and software that supports HomeOS. Consumers will buy these products, which are likely to include all the things one might automate: sprinklers, lights, home-entertainment systems, fans, doorbells, heaters, air conditioners, coffee makers, dishwashers, robotic vacuum cleaners and home security systems.
In addition to products that support HomeOS, you would buy a server, which would be a small computer system that everything would connect to, mostly wirelessly. You would control your home automation
with a smart phone. This actually improves the experience, because as this image shows, you can see camera feeds on your phone, which is probably always going to be with you.
And finally, the coolest thing of all: a HomeOS app store.
The HomeOS app store
So you’ve got your HomeOS server, and you’ve got some devices that support HomeOS. Now what? Microsoft is planning to offer a HomeOS app store, where you can browse and download software that will automate your home.
This makes sense coming from the world's largest software company. This screen capture shows a control panel, where you can check the status of all smart devices in the house. This wasn't created by Microsoft, but by a supporting partner for another platform that Microsoft makes. A "control panel" category of apps is just one that will exist in the HomeOS app store.
For example, some company might offer an app that puts the video feed from your security system up on the TV when it detects motion. Another company might offer software that sends you a text message when someone comes to your door. Another might develop software that plays music based on who’s in the room (by detecting your cell phone).
Nobody knows what applications will be available on the HomeOS app store. And that’s the point. Hundreds or thousands of software makers can offer more variety than any one company alone.
As one example of a very friendly application, Microsoft researchers are developing something called HomeMaestro.
The HomeMaestro idea
A Microsoft research project called HomeMaestro is working on making it easier to control devices in your home.
The approach uses regular language, rather than complex controls. The idea is an old-fashioned if-then statement common to basic software programming: If something happens, then make something else happen.
In a
video demonstration, HomeOS researchers use the simple example of: “If I open the door, then turn on the light.” This command is called a rule, and it’s controlled on your smart phone.
The HomeMaestro project does a neat trick. As you build these rules, you use the action to inform the app. For example, you tell the app to create a rule. Then you open the door manually. “The door opens” appears in the top box.
Then you click on the Then box, and turn on the lamp. “Turn on the lamp” appears in the Then box. You save your rule, and automation has been set. In the future, when you open the door, the lamp will turn on.
The HomeMaestro project would have all home automation work this way — by example.
While the door-and-lamp example is very simple, the rules for home automation could be very complex: If I watch a show, don’t record it. If the air temperature outside is below 50 degrees between the hours of 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., turn on and warm up the car when I make coffee. When everyone is in bed, turn off all the downstairs lights and appliances.
The possibilities are endless. Especially since the HomeMaestro project envisions social sharing of rules — a "rules store" where you can browse and download rules created by others for your own use.
So when is HomeOS coming home?
Microsoft has been developing HomeOS for years and has been testing HomeOS in real homes. It's called on students and Microsoft programmers to create apps for the HomeOS app store.
So far, Microsoft has not announced a product release date, pricing or other details, so that means we won’t see products on the market this year. However, with other competitors also preparing similar offerings, including search engine giant Google, I would be surprised if next year didn't see a big launch of the new Microsoft HomeOS product, and a tsunami of home appliances that support it.
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