For centuries, people have tried to make their lives easier. Fire was used to cook food and wheels helped to transport heavy objects. Over time, caves were replaced by increasingly comfortable houses. Simple shelter has become a home - a place where we feel comfortable and safe, with everything arranged according to our needs. A smart house elevates our comfort to a new level, maintaining an even temperature, controlling lights and entertainment, ensuring security and helping to save money.

• What smart home is able to control and manage?
• How Smart Homes Work?

Irrespective of whether you feel you don’t have enough imagination or you have too much of it, Võrguvara is there to assist you in designing realistic, functional and reasonable solutions for your house. A house should not be smarter than the user and should only assist its inhabitants, making their lives easier. A smart house does not require constant checking and alteration. A year after moving into a smart house, you will find it quite natural not to look for a light switch when you enter auxiliary rooms, or that your favourite TV programmes will be automatically recorded while you are on holiday, and that cucumbers in the greenhouse are automatically watered. And the main thing is that a smart house makes life easier!

The ‘smart house’ concept

Many systems used in a smart house are also common in regular houses, such as heating, air conditioning, the internet, etc. What then makes a smart house special? The answer is the fact that these systems cooperate and are convenient to use. For instance, you can tell the house to look up weather forecasts on the internet or via a personal weather station and to set up the heating in advance of the arrival of a major cold front.
The heart of a smart house is a mediator, which distributes information between different systems, making them communicate with each other. After detecting that the security alarm system is switched on, the house activates an economy ventilation mode and switches off the lights.

Võrguvara uses open standards for communications between systems. According to Võrguvara’s concept, decentralised intelligence provides better results, because cooperation between systems results in savings and increased comfort. Customers are free to describe their dream house. The experts from Võrguvara help them to find an optimal solution to make the dreams come true.
Building a smart house does not significantly increase the complexity of the design process. Forward-looking architectural design companies already have the required expertise for designing smart houses.

Heating, cooling and ventilation systems

In the Estonian climate, winters are cold and summers can sometimes be hot. The house needs to be heated and cooled, with separate systems usually used for both functions. In a typical situation, the heating system is programmed to maintain a temperature of 22 degrees Celsius, while the cooling system should reduce the temperature to 20 degrees. As neither system is able to achieve the desired result, they both work at full power. In a smart house, systems communicate with each other.

• Cooperation between heating and cooling
• Heating control based on a weather station
• Data collection and analysis
• Savings
• Alternative energy systems, solar panels, wind turbine
• Ventilation

Heating and cooling distribution

Some people feel comfortable in the cool air of Alaska, while others prefer Las Vegas with its hot desert winds. Often, those people have to share a house. Some would like to sleep in a cool room, while a warmer environment is preferred when sitting at a computer and working. In a smart house, you can set a preferred temperature level for each room.

• Heating and cooling distribution for individual rooms
• Cooperation between heating and cooling systems
• Cooperation with a weather station
• Ventilation control based on room CO2 concentration

Security

Larger houses usually have several entrances and exits: a main door onto the street, doors to the garden, and maybe also separate doors for the garage, sauna, etc. When we leave the house in the morning we may want to grab a rake from the auxiliary room, or we might prefer to leave the key at home when we go cycling. To avoid carrying metal keys we can use a biometric lock, which detects the user’s fingerprint. Alternatively, if somebody has an apartment in a holiday region, they can grant their friends access to the apartment for a limited time - if they ask nicely.

Security

• Biometric locking systems, authentication and identification
• Movement sensors
• Video surveillance
• Alarm
• Smoke detector
• Panic alarm buttons
• Lights are automatically switched off when the security alarm system is activated.
• If the security alarm system is activated, any potentially dangerous electrical sockets are switched off.

Lighting solutions

The automation of lighting seems simple, but it is actually a challenging task. It is not nearly as straightforward as buying a light with a movement sensor and placing it in the garden. The system has to be able to decipher complex movement patterns. For instance, the wife would like the lights to remain off while she goes downstairs to let the cat out, while the husband prefers the path to the ground floor to be lit during dark winter mornings. There are several solutions for this. One option would be to identify the person and their preferences on the basis of a personal security code or fingerprint in order to switch off the security alarm system on the ground floor.

Lighting solutions

• Different light scenarios in the living room and the kitchen enable the illumination to be customised according to user preferences: dimmed wall lighting is switched on for watching TV, more light is provided for needlework, etc.
• Lights are automatically switched on and off in hallways, auxiliary rooms, etc.
• Individual settings can be used for each light, specifying the degree and type of illumination given and the conditions for its activation.
• In cases requiring a continuous lighting function, the system maintains an even indoor and outdoor illumination level, irrespective of whether the sun is rising or setting.
• Light intensity measurements with a luxmeter.

Multimedia

Almost all homes have a TV set and everyone has their favourite programmes and films. The choices are endless: TV, HD channels, music, interactive entertainment, or video games where players have to jump, sing or bang drums. Modern home entertainment centres can keep people glued to the screen for hours. However, controlling the system is often a job for experts, requiring the skilful handling of multiple remote controls: one remote for the TV, another for IPTV or the satellite tuner, while Xbox uses Kinect to react to gestures, and the button for simply listening to the radio is always hidden away somewhere. The good news is that all these functions can be controlled from one application. The entertainment system of a smart house can also record your favourite programmes if necessary.

Multimedia

• TV
• Radio
• Music
• Internet
• Video games
• Recording
• HD channels

Other options

A smart house is exactly as smart as you like. If you have an idea for a useful function that is not on this list, make sure you tell us about it. Together we will find a solution!

For example, a customer wanted coordinated functionality of security, audio and lighting systems. If movement sensors detect unwanted intruders in the garden during the night, the garden lights are switched on and a recorded message from the owner is played through the speakers.

Other options

• Automatic lawn watering: watering is performed only after sensors detect that the soil moisture content has fallen below a set level.
• Automatic greenhouse watering
• Greenhouse ventilation
• Curtain control
• Pool water filtration
• Pool water heating
• Remote control of the sauna stove: you can switch the sauna on before you leave the forest on a cold winter day so that you have a warm room waiting for you after you get home.