The adaptive house

The promise of automated "smart homes" has been much touted in the press for the past quarter-century. However, few automation innovations have been adopted because home inhabitants seldom view the benefits as outweighing the costs. One significant cost of an automated home is that it has to be programmed to behave appropriately. We describe an alternative approach in which the goal is for the home essentially to program itself by observing the lifestyle and desires of inhabitants and then learning to anticipate their needs. This adaptive home operates almost transparently to the inhabitants, in contrast to the cumbersome user interfaces common in traditional automated homes. The author describes his experiences over the past decade with a system in his home that controls ambient temperature and lighting so as to simultaneously maintain a comfortable environment and conserve energy. Finally, this article reflect on the successes and limitations of the work. (41 pages)