Smart environment

The concept of smart environments evolves from the definition of ubiquitous computing that, according to Mark Weiser, promotes the ideas of "a physical world that is richly and invisibly interwoven with sensors, actuators, displays, and computational elements, embedded seamlessly in the everyday objects of our lives, and connected through a continuous network."

Smart environments are envisioned as the byproduct of pervasive computing and the availability of cheap computing power, making human interaction with the system a pleasant experience.

Cook and Das define smart environment as "a small world where different kinds of smart device are continuously working to make inhabitants' lives more comfortable." Smart environments aim to satisfy the experience of individuals from every environment, by replacing the hazardous work, physical labor, and repetitive tasks with automated agents. Poslad differentiates three different kinds of smart environments for systems, services and devices: virtual (or distributed) computing environments, physical environments and human environments, or a hybrid combination of these:

Smart environments are broadly classified to have the following features

To build a smart environment, involves technologies of

The Aware Home Research Initiative at Georgia Tech "is devoted to the multidisciplinary exploration of emerging technologies and services based in the home" and was launched in 1998 as one of the first "living laboratories." The MavHome (Managing an Adaptive Versatile Home) project, at UT Arlington, is a smart environment-lab with state-of-the-art algorithms and protocols used to provide a customized, personal environment to the users of this space. The MavHome project, in addition to providing a safe environment, wants to reduce the energy consumption of the inhabitants. Other projects include House_n at the MIT Media Lab and many others.

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