Ever wondered what a smart home might look like? If you’re curious, Honda has taken the wraps off their Honda Smart Home System (HSHS) which is a demonstration house located in Saitama, Japan. The home is basically equipped with a variety of energy production, management and conservation solutions. The goal here is to provide home owners with self-sufficiency in the event that disaster strikes and the power has been cut, and also help to reduce carbon emissions while at home and while on the road thanks to the use of electric vehicles which have also been included as part of the HSHS.The home will include solar panels, a gas-driven cogeneration unit dubbed EXlink along with a Smart e Mix Manager that not only functions as the central control for the entire system, but it will help home owners keep track of the energy produced and will also be able to supply emergency electricity in the event of a blackout. The HSHS will also come with a feature that will notify home owners of lights and appliances that can be turned off before leaving the house, i.e. lights, the radio, computer, television, etc. Honda is expected to construct additional homes and continue refining the system until 2018, but no word on how much such a system could cost or if it could be installed in existing homes today.
Sounds like a pretty interesting and green system, so if you’d like to learn more, head on over to Honda’s website or check out the video below (it’s in Japanese) for the details.
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