Low cost home surveillance
Technology has transformed the workplace and is now making its way into our homes. The current trend is toward intelligent homes with advanced entertainment, security and energy-saving features. However, wiring new homes is costly while retrofitting existing homes can be prohibitively expensive. Recently, the technology to transport high volumes of data over powerlines has matured. For this reason, the GROWTH Programme funded a team of ten organisations to investigate the potential of powerlines for the purposes of home automation. The Italian firm Microtelecom s.r.l. led the development of a home surveillance system. They applied Ultra Wide Band (UWB) technology to enable powerlines to carry high quality audio and video signals. Consequently, the Italian engineers were able to demonstrate the system's capabilities for tasks such as entry control. The major advantage of the solution is its low cost in comparison to conventional home alarm systems. Microtelecom and its WIRENET partners have targeted entry into the low-end sector of the relevant market.
