As the development of the ‘Internet of Things continues’ at an increasingly rapid pace a Birmingham lawyer is staying ahead of the game by transforming his house into a state-of-the-art smart home.
Mark Neale, an IT partner at law firm Freeths’ Birmingham office, admits to being ‘a geek’ on one level but says early adopters of the latest smart home technology are helping to pave the way for others.
Mr Neale believes most or all of us will eventually be taking advantage of the kind of technology he has fitted to his Edgbaston home, making life easier all round and bringing huge savings in terms of energy costs.
In essence Mr Neale can control, lighting, heating, security alarms and much more besides via his smart phone, even from the comfort of his city centre office, as illustrated in the video below.
Hi-tech LED bulbs have been fitted to create ambient lighting, the gates of his house can be opened and closed and Mr Neale can even listen in to rooms in his house via microphones if his security alarm is activated - to decide whether there is a intruder or it has been set off accidentally.
Mr Neale, who says he has been obsessed by technology since he was a child, said: “I am a geek it’s fair to say but from what I see on TV I think it is now trendy to be a geek.
“My aim with the house is to make everything accessible with the touch of a button from a smart phone.
“One aim is to be able to turn up to the house and the lights go on in a clever way.
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“At the moment I am developing outdoor lighting so as you walk up the drive the telephone will start to turn the lights on.
“Then as you reach the house the interior lights will come on and depending on time of day the lights will differ.
“There’s some really clever additional stuff that the lighting systems can do, ie you can set the lighting to be purple to let you know it is raining outside or if a text message comes in the lights go to red.”
Mr Neale is driven by the fact the Internet of Things offers huge potential for connected technology.
He said: “Only about 20 per cent of things that could currently be connected to the internet are, so there is massive scope. It is amazing to see where it is all going.
“Currently there are cows in New Zealand that are connected to the internet to enable a farmer to know whether they are healthy and where they are moving about.”
Plans in the pipeline for Mr Neale include a TV that drops down from the ceiling when someone walks into a room and to have automatic blinds and curtains.
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“My desire would be for all of the blinds and curtains to operate remotely,” he said. “But in a 1930s house this is complicated and hugely expensive, you have to re-plaster whole parts of the house to get cabling in. That is a pipe dream at the moment.”
Although it’s difficult to put a figure on his investment so far, Mr Neale admits the technology does not come cheap. The special LED light bulbs he uses, which are wi-fi connected and can create any colour imaginable, cost £50 a piece.
He said: “I have now reached the stage where with the lighting it is pretty much all over the house but it is a massive investment to do just that.
“I am also a heavy DIY-er, so when it comes to the clever recessed lights I have the skills - I can take out plaster work and put cabling in.
“If I was getting in an electrician to do it, it would be very expensive but fortunately I can do a lot of these things myself.”
With his lighting system fully operational Mr Neale says he would like to have a celebration just to showcase it.
He added: “I am looking at having a party where the lighting could correspond to the music being played - beat, tone etc.”
Leaving the ‘geeky’ aspect aside, he does feel such technology will bring huge benefits in the long-term.
He said: “You have to have the early adopters - the people who pave the way - because the technology will get cheaper and more and more people will have this. But you have to have people like me spending a fortune to develop the systems.
“Obviously the way it is going it is going to develop benefits from an energy saving perspective, even if you are not that interested in making lights dance to whatever tune you are playing.
“This technology can encourage saving energy that we can all take part in.”