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About This Report Home networks are an old idea. More than 50 years ago, in 1954, more than 1000 people per week visited General Electric's All Electric Home (which still hosts visitors in Kansas), where sensors and timers control illumination embedded into floors and a switch in the master bedroom controls a coffee maker in the kitchen. In fact, movies and stories were even making fun of the idea of smart homes as early as the 1940s. For example, the 1949 film The Further Adventures of Ma and Pa Kettle depicts a "house of the future" in which the gadgets run out of control. And Ray Bradbury's 1950 story The Veldt depicts a smart home that becomes emotionally disturbed and kills its owners. More seriously, electronics companies through the years have promoted many applications of smart homes—especially appliance control, energy management, and networked entertainment systems. Today's visionaries are still optimistic about sensor networks that help save energy and money, home servers that deliver any desired content to any desired location, and advanced refrigerators that take their own inventories and order groceries automatically. Yet many analysts say that smart homes never became popular and that home networking remains a promise, not a reality. Indeed, home-network markets have disappointed many businesses that expected people to adopt networked appliances and lighting. In reality, home-network devices have not been very effective in saving energy or eliminating tedious chores that homeowners must perform. In fact, installing and maintaining home-network solutions can be a chore. In particular, the task of installing special wiring may create more problems than it solves. Even today, some business plans appear to assume that users will install special wiring (such as Firewire) between two rooms of a home. I think that few people are likely to install such room-to-room wiring. Other business plans call for reusing in-home powerlines for networking. Powerlines could solve market-development problems because such reuse does not require any new wiring. (In principle, reusing in-home phone lines could also work, but piggybacking data on phone lines can interfere with DSL [digital-subscriber–line] service and thus seems unlikely to become popular.) However, manufacturers who advocate such a solution face a challenge to create an entirely new business and technology "ecosystem." In contrast, many households have already installed Wi-Fi, and I believe that they are very likely to install Wireless USB and other in-home wireless interconnections. Reusing existing Wi-Fi and other wireless technologies could greatly simplify the installation of new devices—a reason why wireless technology is so important to home-network market development. Despite the gap between promise and reality, devices in homes are increasingly interconnected, and homes themselves are increasingly connected to the Internet via broadband services. The increasing presence of Wi-Fi in homes now makes it possible to add non-PC Wi-Fi devices such as security cameras, wireless audio-video adapters, and the emerging generation of video-game consoles. The likely retail introduction of Wireless USB by the end of 2006 will make it easier for handheld devices (such as cellular handsets and MP3 players) to transfer content to and from fixed devices (such as PCs and home theaters). And in an environment where in-home wireless infrastructure already exists, perhaps homeowners will install home-networking solutions in response to major trends in society—such as the rising price of energy and concerns about safety, security, and the environment. Wi-Fi, Wireless USB, and other wireless technologies may thus provide connectivity for energy-saving devices, security systems, smoke alarms, and other solutions that can deliver peace of mind, responsible citizenship, and economic benefits. We welcome feedback about this report and the program, and we encourage you to contact us with any questions or suggestions. For more information, please contact Michael Gold at telephone: Table of Contents
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