Intel’s Embedded Internet Vision Starts with The Home Dashboard

Intel last month gave a clearer indication of their intention to play a bigger part in the connected home market, with the release of the Intel Home Energy Management Reference Design. Many companies are already using Intel’s Atom processor for the system, but Intel is going a bit further by offering a complete solution in the Intel Home Dashboard proof of concept device.

The Intel Home Dashboard is just a foretaste of what to expect in the connected home of the future and part of what Intel called the “embedded internet”, a world where most of the devices we use are connected to share information.

The Intel Home Dashboard, said Intel, is designed to be the heart of the home network; therefore Zigbee-enabled systems can communicate with the dashboard wirelessly to enable it to provide information that will help families control utility costs, plan their daily activities, activate home security systems and access personal messages.

According to Chris O’Malley, Marketing Manager at Intel, the Intel Home Dashboard Concept is an Atom based device that provides relevant and detail information on your overall electricity consumption and usage pattern with advance features that enable consumer to proactively take energy saving actions, to reduce and manage their energy effectively.

The Intel Home Dashboard like the Cisco Smart Home Energy management Solution, which is part of Cisco’s complete end-to-end smart gird solution; communicate through the use of smart plugs and other smart devices in our home to relay energy usage information.  They also offer the ability to add new application such as yellow pages, transportation schedule and video recording.

Managing your energy use is via its intuitive touchscreen. From here you can see which home appliance is using more energy and create schedule to use electricity when energy cost is low.  At the top of the device is the Goodbye Switch, which has a user configured mode, that if witch when leaving the home puts the house in different state such as adjusting thermostat, turn off vampire devices and arm the security system. See intel for more inforamtion.