During the past week at CES (News - Alert), I had the chance to check out the various demos related to home energy management and energy efficiency. Here is a short list of the various products I found interesting.

 

The first gadget is the OpenPeak set of devices. Built on Intel (News - Alert) Atom, and using the Linux distribution tailored for Atom, Moblin. The OpenPeak OpenPanel is essentially a Linux computer with a very nice industrial design and touch screen user interface. What is interesting is that OpenPeak has partnerships with both GE and Direct Energy as a home hub and energy monitoring/control panel for residential energy management.

 

Another similar device, also built using the Intel Atom chip-set is the SilverPac thermostat. This device is also quite attractive and includes real-time energy display right on the thermostat panel. It integrates with both Smart Meters and the home Wi-Fi network. Applications that run on it and take advantage of the Wi-Fi connectivity include a Calendar.

 

Consumer electronics is really a market dominated by the other two major CPU core companies, ARM and MIPS, not Intel. MIPS architectures drive virtually all TVs, set-top boxes, high end digital picture frames and routers, while ARM runs virtually all cell phones and other small devices.

 

One announcement at CES was that MIPS has embraced Android. This is very significant because it will likely mean that the Android operating system will be adopted by the mass market consumer electronics OEMs and thus we can expect TV sets, picture frames and panels to become powerful application platforms similar in flexibility to Droid phones and IPhones.

 

I personally believe that if OEMs do indeed adopt Android, companies like OpenPeak and SilverPac will have a tough time competing with the potentially millions of software applications which can be distributed via applications stores to all Android based consumer electronics devices. A company that did build a “panel” application that runs on directly on set-top boxes and TVs is 4Home who demonstrated an impressive home energy management solution which can be embedded directly into set-top boxes. Android for consumer electronics will only make projects like this immensely easier.

 

A quick disclaimer, bringing Android to consumer electronics is something that I am deeply involved with. So my opinion is definitely biased!

 

Now moving past Home energy management application platforms and home hubs to home area networking, an area that pleasantly surprised me was the Z-Wave Alliance pavilion. Even though controlled by one company, Z-Wave has always had some advantages to its competition, including, much less interference with Wi-Fi, a very large partner eco-system and a vast number of Z-Wave enabled devices available commercially. The reason for the last two benefits is very simple, all Z-Wave devices are truly interoperable, while, often, one companies definition of ZigBee has been very different to anothers.

 

Having said this, I was pretty convinced that Z-Wave based solutions had missed the boat to enter the utility based home energy management market. So the pleasant surprise was that this is not the case. I saw that virtually all the Z-Wave based home control vendors now understand the value of selling home energy management as part of their package. I would go as far as saying the Z-Wave pavilion had the most impressive energy management solutions at CES. Three of these companies that I think deserve special mention are BuLogics, HomeManageables and, again, 4Home.

 

BuLogics deserves special mention because in the short period of a year, it has managed to develop a solution which is not that far off, in my opinion, from being competitive to some of the most well funded home energy management platforms, and fully integrated into the utilities network. HomeManageables had, what appears to me, to be the easiest to use home control interface and a very friendly user experience, they have priced and built their solutions with the mass market in mind, which is something utilities will definitely appreciate. 4Home has, in my opinion, the most advanced “home control as a service” solution for carriers and MSOs and broadband service providers; any service provider who wants to offer third party energy management solutions should check out this company.

 

Even though I think Z-Wave made some real impressive strides at this show in catching up with ZigBee’s momentum, I’m still convinced that the future of 802.15.4 lies in 6LowPan (Ipv6). ZigBee is on a path to redefining itself as a 6LowPan application layer protocol, it will be interesting to see what, if any, steps Zen-Sys will take to make sure Z-Wave stays relevant in an IP based HAN.

 

Moving to another home area networking technology, DS2’s demo of G.hn was a real milestone. G.hn is an ITU communications protocol that unifies powerline, coax and phone lines as one communications medium. This was significant because this demo showed that the potential unification of all possible mediums available to a service provider managed home area network is not that far off. Another company to keep an eye on in this space is CopperGate.

 

This was a very interesting demo. Airnergy is a battery charger system that harvests the ambient energy found in Wi-Fi signals and stores them in a battery. The demonstration they had involved charging a BlackBerry (News - Alert) from 30 percent charged to full in an hour and a half using the harvested ambient Wi-Fi signals.

 

Their were the insights I discovered on what the connected car will mean for V2G (vehicle to grid) communications but this topic deserves a a dedicated piece.