Can you imagine going into your house and talk to it to give it up to 60 instructions on lighting, heating, blinds control or closing the doors? It is the new free@home system of ABB, a global leader in power and automation. The company has launched one of the most advanced voice-activated automation systems for smart homes.
In an international presentation held in Utrecht (Netherlands) last week, ABB has gone a step further in the field of automation and the Internet of things. Now you can control how your home works by voice activation to control over 60 home automation functions.
Home Control
The solution offers the unique ability to control the entire range of applications of a typical residential smart home, including lighting, heating, blinds control and communication with the doors.
ABB launched free@home in 2014 with the aim that installers would find it easier to offer home automation and bring to the home the advantages of the Internet of Things, services and people. With this system, it is easier to manage multiple functions, through a smart device or computer, in order to create the environment for home that consumers demand. Now, adding voice control, the home automation is even simpler.
Mike Mustapha, Managing Director of the Building business unit of ABB, said «our goal is to facilitate home automation more than ever, and free@home creates a new niche in the market. We continue to add functionality, and our innovative voice activation further increases the convenience for users. Imagine coming home at night, give the order to turn on the hall lights, and the lights come on, or say as you leave home turn off all lights and that they are switched off. «
Dialog processor
According to the digital research service of BI Intelligence, the worldwide market for smart homes devices was valued at more than 61,000 million dollars in 2014 and is projected to grow to 490,000 million for 2019, an annual growth about 50%.
Users can program the system to choose the names of rooms and areas. The system can be configured so that users receive confirmation that a command has been activated, so that saying «pull down the blinds leaving room» you can hear » all blinds in the leaving room have been pulled down,» etc. In addition, users can ask questions to the system about the status of the functions, such as «are the lights off in Thomas´ room?» And the system will give an answer.
ABB has implemented a hybrid voice recognition solution that combines voice recognition based on grammar along with a statistical model of speech. Both natural speeches as commands based speeches are supported, so that the user can say «Can you turn on the leaving room lights?» Or «living room -turn-lights.» The dialogue processor of the voice control system uses algorithms to recognize the user’s intentions and context.
Autonomous action
Users do not need training because the speech model is based on the words programmed into the free@home system (names of the house´s floors, rooms and functions controlled). The system collects context data, but also a large voice library. Furthermore, if the command is incomplete, the system will prompt the user for additional information.
The «Actions» menu is a further improvement, as it enables the intelligent combination of different processes using logic «if … then». For example, if the room temperature exceeds 25 ° C, the blinds could be lowered automatically. And if the motion detector gets activated, the user will receive an email or a push notification on their smartphone.
Carlos Sánchez Criado
Publicista por la Universidad Complutense. Director comercial de publicaciones técnicas del sector de la energía durante doce años. Director de Energy News Events, S.L. desde 2012 difundiendo información en Energynews.es, movilidadelectrica.com e hidrogeno-verde.es. Y por supuesto, organizando eventos como VEM, la Feria del Vehículo Eléctrico de Madrid.
