Will 2016 be the year that home builders embrace technology?

2015 was a memorable year for Customised and it culminated with our recent trip to China to participate in a global gathering of technology suppliers and installers.  I had the great honour in representing the UK in discussions about the installation and maintenance of home control systems.  The main concern I raised about the future of home control is the lack of wiring to handle the year on year increase in technology in the home.

Our home control system of choice at Customised is HDL BusPro which manages and controls all of the lighting, heating, audio, security and energy resources in the home.  It’s a simple to use, robust home control system which has both wired and wireless versions.  Ninety percent of the Customised installations are in new build or renovation projects so we always choose the wired BusPro system.

All the BusPro wiring is taken care of by the electrician, as you would expect, and it uses cable they are already familiar with.  The key to the interconnection of services and devices is the bus cable.  The bus is the simple and robust part of the system and delivers the commands where and when they are needed in the home.  Along with the HDL wiring we also ensure wiring is installed for internet, CCTV, satellite/terrestrial TV and telephone.

Currently in UK homes, both old and new, there is little or no interconnection between lighting, heating and security to name just three services.  I can understand old buildings not having a certain level of intelligence in the building but new homes have no excuse.  During construction, every home built in Britain has the opportunity to have cables installed within the structure to allow a multitude of services to work in unison for the home owner.  Year after year the home builders shy away from adopting a smarter wiring scheme in their properties yet home buyers are now demanding better connectivity in their homes.

Nowadays families are equipped with an array of connected devices; smartphones and tablets, wireless printers, home monitoring cameras, wireless music systems, Smart TV, games consoles and even smart kitchen appliances.  Currently that lot is dumped on your HomeHub or SuperHub to manage all the traffic connecting your devices, when it starts to play up it can make things a little tense at home, such is the impact of reliable and fast broadband in homes.  Imagine the traffic impact when you add smart thermostats, smart lightbulbs, wireless alarm systems and much, much more.  Wireless smart home living is a fantasy that may come to fruition one day but it will never replace the reliability and performance of wired connectivity.

At Customised we want 2015 to have been the last year where technology wiring is left off the drawing board by home builders, architects and electrical specifier, and are launching a calendar of events for East Anglian construction professionals on how to design and build future ready homes. Look out for details of this from early 2016 via our social media channels and website.