Microsoft's HomeOS provide a central hub through which various household devices can be controlled
Microsoft is looking to unify electrical appliances within the home
and establish itself in the burgeoning “smart home” market with the
development of HomeOS. Essentially a lightweight “smart home” operating
system that aims to make it easy for users to manage their home networks
and ease the creation of applications by third party developers, HomeOS
is designed to provide a central hub through which various household
devices can be controlled.
Like a personal computer that instantly recognizes attached devices
such as a USB mouse, Microsoft is seeking to overcome the problem of
getting various, currently incompatible devices to communicate with each
other. This would make adding new devices to the network as simple as
plugging in a USB mouse to a computer.
The current prototype HomeOS system, which includes support for
devices such as light switches, security cameras and TVs, is a Windows
system running on US$350 worth of hardware through which all commands
are relayed. Microsoft Research has demonstrated the simplicity and
intuitiveness of the system using the HomeMaestro app on a Windows Phone
that lets users set up “rules” that trigger an appliance – turning on a
lamp when opening a door, for example. These rules can also be chained
together to perform more complex behaviors involving multiple devices.
Google’s Android@Home project promises similar functionality, but
maybe Microsoft’s ace in the hole will come from the HomeOS Homestore.
Following in the footsteps of Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android
Market, this is an app store of sorts that will allow users to find and
install third party apps. Like the Android model, developers can target a
type of device of a single device, meaning users will have the benefit
of apps made for niche devices.
With the amount of technology now found in the average home only set
to increase, it seems it’s only a matter of time before someone is able
to bring the various devices together under the one roof, as it were.
While Microsoft certainly has the financial and technological teeth
to put it in a good position to lead the smart home charge, there's
still quite a few steps it needs to make before HomeOS is ready for
primetime. As it will probably struggle to launch a home revolution on
the back of the struggling Windows Phone platform alone, making the
“Home Maestro” home control app compatible with Android and iOS would
probably be a good start.
Source: Microsoft Research
The video below shows the prototype HomeOS system being demonstrated using the HomeMaestro app.
HomeOS: Enabling smarter homes for everyone
It is no secret that homes are
ever-increasing hotbeds of new technology such as set-top boxes, game
consoles, wireless routers, home automation devices, tablets, smart
phones, and security cameras. This innovation is breeding heterogeneity
and complexity that frustrates even technically-savvy users’ attempts to
improve day-to-day life by implementing functionality that uses these
devices in combination. For instance, it is impossible for most users to
view video captured by their security camera on their smartphone when
they are not at home. Heterogeneity across devices and across homes also
makes it difficult to develop applications that solve these problems in
a way that work across a range of homes.
To simplify the management of technology and to simplify the development of applications in the home, we are developing an "operating system" for the home. HomeOS provides a centralized, holistic control of devices in the home. It provides to users intuitive controls to manage their devices. It provided to developers high-level abstractions to orchestrate the devices in the home. HomeOS is coupled with a HomeStore through which users can easily add obtain applications that are compatible with devices in their homes and obtain any additional devices that are needed to enable desired applications.
To simplify the management of technology and to simplify the development of applications in the home, we are developing an "operating system" for the home. HomeOS provides a centralized, holistic control of devices in the home. It provides to users intuitive controls to manage their devices. It provided to developers high-level abstractions to orchestrate the devices in the home. HomeOS is coupled with a HomeStore through which users can easily add obtain applications that are compatible with devices in their homes and obtain any additional devices that are needed to enable desired applications.
Prototype
We conducted studies to both understand the difficulties that people
face today in managing modern technologies in the home and understand
how they would like to manage and secure them in an ideal world. Based
on these findings, we have developed a research prototype of HomeOS. Our
current prototype includes support for a range of devices (e.g.,
switches, cameras, TVs) and applications. Experimental results show
that it is easy for developers to write applications and for
non-technical users to manage their home networks with HomeOS. A dozen
homes have "dogfooded" our prototype, and over 50 students have
developers applications and drivers for it.
In addition to the publications and talks below, the following
resources provide more information on the HomeOS prototype and what it
supports:
- Programming guide
- Applications and drivers that we developed
- Applications and drivers that others have contributed
Software Licensing
We are licensing (free; non-commercial use) the HomeOS prototype to
academic instituitions to encourage teaching and research on connected
homes and devices. Thanks to Sigma Designs, we also provide an SDK for Z-Wave devices.
Many research groups have licensed our prototype, including those at
the Georgia Institute of Technology the Univerity of Arkansas, the
University of Michigan, the University of Washington, the University of
Wisconsin, and the University of Waterloo.
Contact ratul@microsoft.com if you are interested in licensing HomeOS.
Publications
- Colin Dixon, Ratul Mahajan, Sharad Agarwal, AJ Brush, Bongshin Lee, Stefan Saroiu, and Victor Bahl, An Operating System for the Home, in NSDI, USENIX, April 2012
- W. Keith Edwards, Rebecca Grinter, Ratul Mahajan, and David J. Wetherall, Advancing the State of Home Networking, in Communications, ACM, 1 June 2011
- A.J. Brush, Bongshin Lee, Ratul Mahajan, Sharad Agarwal, Stefan Saroiu, and Colin Dixon, Home Automation in the Wild: Challenges and Opportunities, ACM Conference on Computer-Human Interaction, May 2011
- Colin Dixon, Ratul Mahajan, Sharad Agarwal, A.J. Brush, Bongshin Lee, Stefan Saroiu, and Victor Bahl, The Home Needs an Operating System (and an App Store), in HotNets IX, ACM, 20 October 2010
Talks
- Towards commodity smarthomes
Talks at Duke University, ETH (Zurich), and MPI-SWS (Saarbrucken, Germany) - Design for the "uninterested" userPanel at IEEE CCW 2011
- View the home as a computer
Panel at IEEE CCW 2011 - Home automation in the wild: Challenges and opportunities
Talk at CHI 2011 - The home needs an operating system (and an app store)
Talk at HotNets 2010 - Beyond the super-rich and the super-geeks: Smart homes for the rest of us
Panel at ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Home Networks (HomeNets) 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment