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From...
Who wants a smart home?
Prices must drop and practical uses increase before homes get seriously digital
December 1, 1998
Web posted at: 2:00 PM EST
by Nancy Weil
(IDG) -- Enthusiasts talk about how the great new digital world will change our homes, turning them into smart entities with an infrastructure that can keep us safe, well-fed, and connected.
This begs a question: Would this be a good thing?
Droves of vendors small and large are betting that we'll like having homes filled with digital devices connected by various technologies. The distant vision is that homes will be constructed as networks, with connectors and receptors and transmitters built into the walls. We'll all be able to do whatever we want electronically, whenever we want.
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In digital harmony, Dad and his buddies play computer games on the flat-panel TV using wireless keyboards in the family room, while Junior surfs the Web in his room and Mom transfers images of the happy brood into the PC in the study. In the background, the refrigerator tracks food inventories and allows Internet access to order supplies online, while the security system monitors the in-house network, ever on guard for an "event," and appliances are bright enough to know when they need a repairperson.
Strip away vendor-speak and the wild geek futurisms and the basic premise of home networking is simple. Of the 15 million people in the U.S. who have multiple computers in their homes, a good number would like to easily, inexpensively connect PCs to share the Web, printers, and other peripherals.
Soon, a network in your kitchen?
A variety of seemingly easy-to-use connectors will start testing that theory in coming weeks, with some devices priced at $200 or lower. Analysts say prices must drop below the $100 to $150 range per connection for the notion to take on with the mainstream, but vendors are, predictably, more optimistic.
The evolution of Universal Serial Bus, which theoretically enables up to 127 peripherals to connect to a PC, and the emerging IEEE 1394, or FireWire, as a high-speed serial bus standard, are but two underpinnings of the upcoming home-network market. Growing consumer fondness for digital cameras, the expected buying surge when digital camcorders drop in price, and expanded use of DVD are creating demand for high-speed, in-home digital networks.
3Com, Apple, Compaq, Intel, Lucent Technologies, NEC, and Philips are among the vendors working on home networking products and shaping the infant market. Although the concept has been around for a couple of decades, home networking only now is becoming feasible for the masses, who can take advantage of affordable wireless or phone-line technologies, serial bus advances, and fast cheap CPUs that allow PCs to work like servers.
Before you buy, remember that standards and interoperability issues exist -- as always in emerging areas. Expect vendor cat fights before things sort out.
In some scenarios the PC isn't the hub of the universe. Instead, digital cameras and printers behave companionably and independently of PCs, using small removable memory cards for image transfer. Or TVs take over, allowing a mix of Web surfing and traditional TV viewing with one remote control.
Who's on(line) first?
The first on their blocks to test home-networking options are called "eager connectors" by Intel, which defines the category loosely as households with multiple PCs and multiple adults. They're the users who will spread the word to friends and family about their cool new home networks and how nice it is to not have to constantly survey the household asking "are you on online?" before logging on.
Eager-connector families will likely have at least one member -- perhaps an adolescent -- who knows something about computers and hooking up reasonably simple devices, and will help others get connected.