I am in a great business!  Our company provides really neat things to make people's lives easier and better.  The first article that I wrote for Builder/Architect was in February of 2005; since then, many things have changed.  For one thing, we have grown

Progressive Integrations, Inc., -- now employs 12 great professionals.  Also, many changes have come in technology, improving the business of "system integration" in many ways.  Great, new technologies are coming extremely quickly and it is hard to forecast what the future will bring, but it sure to remain exciting!

Voice Recognition -- Our principal clientele are the owners of luxury homes on the Sea Islands -- many of them spend vacation time here in the Lowcountry.  Three years ago, when I started writing these articles, we still occasionally had the problem of clients forgetting the exact protocol for actuating various systems in their houses.  Quite often this meant taking a ride out to Kiawah to retrain them on which clicker actuated sound, and how another touchpad was used for lighting or the DVD player.  This problem has been almost totally eliminated through new integration technology that allows us to us simple touch pads that control all the systems in the home.  They come in both wall-mounted and portable models, displaying easily understood icons for each system that has been installed -- lighting, sound, video, or security.  However, in the future, even these touch pads will be replaced by new technology, voice recognition.  Residents will be able to walk into any room and use voice commands to start any system.  As an example, use the command "movies" and the TV will turn on and a preprogrammed voice will ask, "which movie?" and the movie title enunciated will begin playing from a digital storage system.  If the movie is not already stored in the system, a voice will inform the resident.  They can then ask that it be downloaded from the internet source that has been programmed into the system.  All the components necessary to make this voice recognition actuation system a reality are technologically available today, and they will soon be integrated into a practical application.

Smart Appliances -- Technological improvements in appliances are being driven from two areas.  First, there are innovations to make the consumer's use of appliances more pleasant and less time consuming, but the biggest driving force is ecological.  Appliances that use less power and other natural resources are being designed to comply with the green movement that we hear about every day.  One technology that already exists is self-diagnostic HVAC systems.  An air conditioner can be hooked to the Internet and when it falls below a certain level of efficiency, a message is sent that initiates an automatic service call from the provider.  When this becomes a widespread feature, significant energy savings will be realized. 

Other innovations are using inventory control systems that have proven themselves in the commercial retail industry:  refrigerators, pantries and wine cellars homeowners can keep track of the existing items on hand and establish automatic ordering systems that maintain predetermined levels.  An example would be refrigerators, now on the market, that have sensory pads on the doors that can scan a milk container or any other item that has been programmed.  You simply run the milk bottle across the scanner and it is automatically added to your shopping list.  There actually are stores in affluent neighborhoods where these lists are sent via the Internet to the store, and the items are then delivered to the home at a prescheduled time.  This saves energy and the transportation, as well as eliminating the use of a lot of paper.  Eventually, the same refrigerator will be able to monitor its inventory automatically and generate the same shopping list based on the preprogrammed levels.

Video Screens -- Although they cost almost $100,000, you can now order a 100-inch television set with very high definition.  You ain't seen nothin' yet!  The next frontier in video displays seems to be organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), which uses organic materials to produce illumination.  Just as we are already seeing LED displays replacing paper on billboards, it appears that this technology will have no size limitation.  This very thin material could be placed on walls of the home, making it possible to change your wallpaper with a touch of a button.  Someday you will be able to have a movie play on that same wall or group of walls, a true 360-degree surround sound and video experience.  These OLEDs have many environmental advantages.  They require very low voltage, and extremely long life and would greatly reduce the hazardous waste problem created by many current video displays.  Regardless of the medium that will eventually be used for these wall-sized screens, they will be interactive, similar to the existing Microsoft media tables:  touch-and-drag files like we now see the TV newscasters using.  The next logical step for which prototypes already exist will be the incorporation of 3-D holograms in spectacular gaming technology.

Security -- In the long run it does not look good for the key industry.  The use of fingerprint or retina sensing devices to open things that are locked is already available, however, it will become very widespread in the near future.  The next step in security will probably be DNA verification using a person's breath.  Of course, the Internet will play a big part in homeowner's expectations for the security of their home.

Lighting -- The incandescent bulb is by far the least efficient way of producing light and we are already seeing how quickly it is on it's way out.  Right now the new technology that is closest to becoming used on a wide scale is the LED light system.  An example of this technology being used today is in rear-projection TV's.  They are using LED bulbs instead of hot mercury vapor bulbs because they draw almost no power and the light produced is perfect in color.  As a point of comparison, fluorescent lights are 25% more efficient than incandescent and LED could possibly be 100% more efficient, and they can last as much as 50 times longer.  We have learned that the lighting scenes that we currently install in homes create ambiance and ease of use actually create energy savings, because they automatically turn bulbs on more gradually and never let them go over 80% output.  This results in energy savings and the light bulbs last much longer.  In the future, these systems will be found in more and more homes to save energy.  So, it would appear that the first step will be wide use of programmed LED technology and that will progress into OLED applications.

Fuel Cells -- We hear a lot about hydrogen fuel cells as they relate to automobiles, but this technology is coming on fast in many other areas.  The Japanese have developed a fuel cell for charging batteries for laptop computers.  Many forecast that homes of the future will generate their own power through solar energy and with miniplants, creating hydrogen for their own fuel cells in the backyard.  We cannot know exactly when these technologies will be in place, but it is a sure bet that because of energy costs, they will be here faster than we thought in 2005.

This is the ninth in a series of articles featuring the knowledge of Mike Riley, who has more than 30-years of experience in home electronics.  Progressive Integrations, Inc., is owned by Mike and Yvonne Riley, and is located at 3424 Maybank Highway, Johns Island, SC  29455.  Contact them for a consultation today.