Re-defining the smart home. From studs to software

What is a “smart” home, is it voice control with Alexa or Google Assistant, is it fully integrated audiovisual systems with a $20k Control4 implementation, is it a ring doorbell and some hue lights integrated to turn on when people enter the home?

When we talk about a Dvele home being smart and technologically advanced these are the types of questions we typically hear.  And frankly, we get it, the term smart home now means a different thing to everyone, and marketers tend to attach it to everything.  

As we got ready to introduce DveleIQ, we thought we’d take a crack at providing a framework to think about “smart” homes.

The 5 Levels of a “Smart” Home

Level 1: Manual Switches & Modern Thermostat

This is where most of today’s homes exist, manual switches to turn on lights, an integrated thermostat for environmental controls, and enough “sensors” to meet building code; detect fire and poisonous CO2 levels.

Level 2: Connected Switches and Devices

Many options from large scale builders fall into this category, lights, and environmental controls that you can control from your phone via an app.  This changes the human-home interface and allows remote control but not much more, while helpful, it’s dated and will only become more obsolete as time passes.

Level 3: Integrated Systems

Integrated systems allow multiple devices to work together from a common interface and at times with some coordination.  With the rapid rise of voice assistants, we’re quickly seeing Level 2 homes migrate to Level 3 with the addition of an Alexa or Google Assistant in the home.  These hubs allow for multiple connected devices to be integrated into scenes and controlled together, in addition to the obvious integration of home controls.  Many of the 10K+ systems also fall into this level with the integration of high-end AV assets.

Level 4 Orchestrated Systems

Orchestrated systems apply some level of “compute” or the ability of a system to take multiple states of the home and change that environment based on a defined ruleset.  This allows for an autonomous home functionality with the right programming.  Think of an orchestrated home as a home powered by “if this then that”. This has long been primarily done in hobbyist communities but rarely makes its way into professional home automation solutions outside of some of the most expensive systems.

Level 5 Intelligent Systems

Intelligent homes are self-learning systems optimizing the health of the occupants, the building, and the planet. In order to build a truly intelligent home, two things are necessary that are not yet prevalent in home building, The first is additional sensors for understanding the state of the home and impact that changes have on the total state of the home.  The second is an intelligent, learning, private system that connects the various inputs and modifies how it behaves based on a current state to achieve the optimal state, a system that learns over time and adapts to its owners, its external environment and their behavior, making your home a better home tomorrow than today.  Another key feature of an intelligent home is that it is software-defined, enabling the home to be upgraded as technology and systems advance.

Today we’re excited to announce Dvele IQ, Dvele’s contribution to improving the smart home world, or in this case the Intelligent Home. We’ve designed a software-first platform to ensure your new home is better tomorrow than it is today.  

Dvele IQ is built first and foremost to optimize the traits Dvele was founded on; to enhance the health of its owners, the building, and the plant as a whole.

How can an intelligent home do that?  Here are some of the intelligent features and automation that come standard with every new Dvele.

• Sensors, in order to make anything better you first need the ability to track it, we’re measuring and tracking over 200 real-time data points in every home.
• Air Quality, through our sensor array, the air is sampled throughout the home CO2, Carbon Monoxide, VOCs, particulate matter, and formaldehyde off-gassing (an unfortunate side effect of some building materials and lifestyle choices).  If we sense an increase in any unhealthy environments we boost our fresh air delivery system to completely recycle the air within the home. The systems also will learn what is causing this over time and preemptively cycle air so that it doesn’t get to an unhealthy level in the first place.
• Convenience, ever waited for the shower to get warm on a cold day?  It’s not really enjoyable, is it? Well, Dvele IQ will learn your routines and over time preemptively cycle all of the hot water so that you have a shower at just the right temperature within seconds of turning it on.
• Orchestration, want to ensure your house is exactly right from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed and even while you sleep? Dvele IQ’s orchestration platform allows you to intelligently automate everything from your lights to your garage door, to the tracking of your sleep patterns compared to the room temperature and everything in between.
• Efficiency Dvele homes are the most efficient homes on the planet, but we’ve taken it a step further with the circuit by circuit energy monitoring that allows the home to learn your usage patterns and offer suggestions for the most efficient and economical usage of power.
• Durability one of the most important impacts our buildings can have is performing over the test of time, that’s why our sensors are constantly monitoring building performance and will alert you if anything doesn’t look right, moisture where it shouldn’t be, energy consumption that doesn’t seem right, you’ll be notified and, if you’ve opted into Dvele’s performance monitoring, so will your certified concierge team at Dvele.
• Better Tomorrow, technology changes fast, so Dvele IQ can be upgradable and is “future-proofed” to allow owners to update homes as new technology evolves.

And we’ve done all this while holding true to a few core beliefs:

• Privacy and Security are extensions of the owner’s health: Dvele systems are private and secure by design; owners choose who gets access to what information and when.
• Data and Science-based design: we are firm believers in “You can’t improve what you don’t measure,” to that end we endeavor to securely and privately measure as much as possible and develop systems to continually improve our homes.
• owners should choose how they interact with their homes: whether it be voice, physical switches, an app, or holograms of tomorrow, we believe that owners should interact with their homes in whatever fashion they prefer/choose.
• Software-defined: software enables rapid change, rapid change facilitates true innovation. Dvele IQ is software first.

We can’t wait for our new owners to experience Dvele IQ.