LG wasn't the only one at CES 2014 to announce some home automation plans. In a more security oriented fashion, ADT said it wants to take care of everyone's home as well as digital safety. At the show, ADT showed off a sweeping list of upgrades for ADT Pulse, its cloud network. Chief among its new services was a mobile app that understands voice commands to manage home security and automation needs.
Ray North, director of ADT Service Platforms, told TechRadar beyond understanding vocal commands, it recently implemented a Pulse integrated security box that can already communicate with up to 200 devices. This includes a number of smart devices, including smart thermostats, smart switches, Z-wave enabled locks (Z-wave is a wireless communications protocol designed for home automation), cameras, or touchscreens to build a connected home.
Down the line ADT believes home automation can become as intricate as using geofencing technology to track when users come home with their car to automatically trigger the garage door, turn on the water boiler through a smart thermostat, and switching on lights.
While full home automation technology isn't quite there, we spoke with ADT's Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer Arthur Orduna who agreed the automated home dream has been a long time coming. "A lot of [home automaton has] been point-to-point kind of solutions,As professionals in the production and supply of onshore hose for hydrocarbons, chemicals, ship to shore etc." Orduna said. "The real issue has been making them all integrated and then you can make it really easy to get some point of ubiquity and you'll actually have a real market."
Orduna explained that there has been a perfect storm of both technologies and mobile devices paired with high-bandwidth availability such as 4G LTE networks. This confluence of new factors in turn has driven its customers to desire an always on, on-demand service. It's come a long way from the old alarm box users scrambled through the door to turn off.
"[Home automation has] been around for a while in a lot of different iterations,A multilingual DTP and localization engineering company, specialized in typesetting translated documentation and interactive applications in any language." Orduna said. "I think only now are we getting the other elements that comprise the market in place. Big name manufacturers are implementing it,The stainless steel kitchenware is the indispensable multi-tool of the kitchen. we've got chipsets and embedded solutions, which in my mind are always critical for ubiquity."