UK on the verge of a smart home breakthrough?

It seems the UK is gearing up for a smart home breakthrough - although they are probably 5 years away. The hope is that the marketplace will grow to an estimated £250m ($533m Cdn ) by 2012. A panel discussion hosted by ABB argued that more universal protocols and clearer focussed agendas are needed to enable the UK smart home industry - an industry that is lagging behind the rest of Europe. One member argued that

"with so many manufacturers and suppliers of the technology each pushing their own agendas, the waters have become muddied when it comes to communicating the benefits of smart home and intelligent building technology to end users," adds Burford. "To date, no-one has really taken a strong lead in the UK market and attempted to set down a de facto definition of the technology."

Once again consumer demand and universal technology protocols become difficult obstacles for the smart home industry.

For the full article take a look here: http://hiddenwires.co.uk/resourcesnews2007/news20070806-01.html.