Drexel Smart House President Jameson Detweiler speaks to a crowd of students about the porject Oct. 30

Drexel Smart House: Efficiency, in home automation

By: Aditi Dubey

Posted: 11/3/06

Students at the University have started an organization to build a fully automated home. It's called Drexel Smart House.

It's "a multidisciplinary group of students working to construct an urban home to serve as a "living laboratory," according to a presentation made by the group. This project will be the third of its kind, the other two being Microsoft Smart House and Duke University's Smart House.

"Ultimately, we are trying to work in a traditional house setting and think about it from a technological point of view, from the energy point of view, from the point of view of just simplifying home automation and making lifestyles better for people," said Detweiler, president of Drexel Smart House . "There are a lot of other issues that come up though. For example, we need to consider things, like when we simplify things, will that result in less human activity and result in a fatter nation?"

The students working on Smart House are split up into committees such as sustainable design, health, structure, communication, marketing and finance. Real estate and Web design are other aspects of the project that the students are going to work on.

"We have a Web space already and we are working on our Web site," Detweiler said. We are looking for office space at Drexel and our real estate team is going to look around for what's available in the nearby area, preferably in the University City and Powelton Village area. We will investigate what land might be available and what kind of structures can be built."

An information session was held Oct. 30 in Matheson Hall, where the group members interacted with students, took questions from the audience and recruited members. The group plans to involve University students and professors, and corporate investors with the project.

"A lot of professors already do research on many of these topics," Detweiler said. "We are hoping to tie them into this and hope that they will let us use their research to make things that can be implemented."

"We want a lot of advisors from different departments because we don't have the kind of expertise that these people have, and they will come from all across the University, and not any particular department."

Potential equipment for this house includes a refrigerator that scans the food for calories and spoilage, and places orders with your local grocery store when the item runs out. Other things that are being planned are self-vacuuming rooms, air-testing devices that will check the air inside the house for airborne pathogens, a home gym and a urine-testing toilet. The house will make use of alternative energy sources, like wind and solar energy.

The house will have enhanced security systems that will scan the faces of all those who enter and exit the house, along with performing basic anti-theft functions. Similar technology is currently used in casinos, Detweiler explained.

Additionally, Drexel Smart House will be upgradeable. It would be possible to turn existing structures into smart houses as well.

"We have to integrate aspects of communication, security, healthcare and efficiency into this house while making sure that it does not become intrusive," Detweiler said.

"These things should just be running in the background and should not bother the inmates."

"The key is to make sure that only the right people have access to it."

Communication efficiency will be enhanced by using technologies like video conferencing.

"Your user profile and primary data will become highly portable," Detweiler said. "If you're working on a document on your computer in the living room and if you go up to your bedroom and open it there, it will show up exactly as you left it on the computer downstairs, without logging you out. You don't have to worry about where things are because you can pretty much access anything anywhere."

Detweiler further said that the ultimate goal of the team is to construct a physical structure in Philadelphia and build it in way that would allow students to live and interact with technology.

"We actually want to build it; it's going to be designed by students," Detweiler said. "Then students will live in that house to show people that the idea of such a house is actually feasible."

The group is considering corporate sponsorships to fund the project.

"We are looking at different grants that are available and also trying to raise money from some alumni," Detweiler said. "This is an entrepreneurial idea in a non-profit sort of way."

Drexel Smart House has received good response from the students and, according to Detweiler, the attendance at the info sessions has been greater than expected.

"Our introductory meeting had almost seventy people there," Detweiler said. "From the students who attended last night, from the people I know and I have met over the Web, I can safely say that there are a lot of people dedicated to being involved."

The project is progressing smoothly as of now.

"Everybody has been supportive up to this point," Detweiler said. "I think what makes us unique is that we are working from a university setting, there is no agenda here and nobody is trying to make a profit. So, hopefully, there won't be any reason for people to be against us."

"I am sure we'll hit glitches along the way, but up to now, things have been very smooth."