Lighting in Design August-September 2015

might get home to discover that the neighbourhood hacker has turned on all the heating in the middle of summer and cost you a fortune. But at the same time, systems that can moni- tor whether a person is in a room and is moving to figure out whether the lights should be on, can also call for help if it is known that person is frail and might need medical attention. Like my sunrise light, systems only need be moderately ‘smart’ to provide impressive benefits to businesses and people in terms of lower costs and an improved living experience. The first interior lighting had the potential to burn down the house.We still took it inside. Speak- ing for myself, with my new little gadget, I’m rather looking forward to winter.

optimising building heating and cooling based on software and clever algorithms. Google bought the company in 2014 for $3.2 billion. Google is now to produce a more integrated home system called Brillo, while Apple is develop- ing HomeKit.The sensors and systems, though, are relatively low-cost and have spawned numerous Kickstarter projects. LIFX, for example, received $1.3 million during its Kickstarter in 2013. Smart systems are hackable. Smart systems generate behavioural data that are valuable. These two things pose major potential privacy issues. Amazon has already developed tags that allow you to reorder household items at the touch of a button. Google will want to learn home behaviour and sell that information to advertisers. And you

GE SmartLink

BelkinWeMo

LIFX

LiD 08-09/15

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