IBM, ST Micro and Shaspa advance smarter home initiative

IBM, ST Micro Electronics and Shaspa has announced a collaboration to tap cloud and mobile computing for manufacturers and service providers. The new formation will provide innovative ways for consumers to manage and interact with their homes' functions and entertainment systems.

The collaboration will use multiple user interfaces such as voice recognition and physical gestures for a smarter home which brings networking functions together. It will create a gateway that connects a television, computer or mobile device with smart meters, lights, appliances, plugs and sensors within the home as well as services from outside.

Parks Associates forecasts that more than 8 billion devices will be connected on the home network by year-end 2015.

The three companies will demonstrate a TV linked to ST's Home Gateway,running software from business partner Shaspa, and connected to the IBM cloud during this week at the world's largest consumer electronics exhibition.

Through sensors, the system can monitor home parameters such as temperature, carbon dioxide level through a wireless or battery-less IPv6 network, or human motion within the home. The data can be communicated to a smartphone or tablet via a wireless router.

 

With this, the homeowner can offload much of the home management to the cloud and interact with the system using event and time-based preset scenarios.

The companies anticipate that this initiative could allow consumers to use any device capable of running apps to manage a variety of personal activities such as viewing their home's energy consumption; controlling security, heating and lighting systems; activating home appliances such as washing machines; monitoring health and assisted living conditions; or engaging in e-commerce.

According to Bruce Anderson, general manager, Global Electronics Industry, IBM. "This collaboration is a great example of how cloud computing can be used for business and industry innovation versus solely for IT efficiency purposes. In the future, cloud-enabled electronics will sense what people want, evolving from seeing-to-noticing-to-remembering personal needs and histories."

In this project, ST's Home Gateway and Shaspa's embedded software acts as a bridge between the home and cloud services provided by the IBM SmartCloud Service Delivery Platform, which gives electronics manufacturers a cloud platform to manage smart devices and rapidly introduce new consumer services.

The gateway, based on a STiH416, provides the physical connectivity,provisioning and management middle ware, application protocols, and interfaces for connecting and controlling the "Internet of Things." The connected-home System-on-Chip runs software including Linux and a service management system compliant with the OSGi industry standard.