KNX Programming Blog

Why KNX for Smart Home Systems?

Oct 7, 2019     Inspire

Why KNX for Smart Home Systems?

Before explaining why KNX & smart home systems are so important, we must understand the operational cost of regular buildings.

It is known that up to 75% of a building’s life cycle cost is operational, which includes communication, energy, access and security costs that are separately controlled by different units. Most of us do never recognize that this multiple-network design is actually a burdensome design for 21th-century technology, due to irrepressible expenditure caused by operational costs, complex and thus expensive technical hitches and inefficient energy consumption.

At this point, a requirement for integrated systems arise. With the development of home automation systems and the birth of the ‘smart home’ concept, a new era has begun. Home automation is the automatic control of

  • heating
  • ventilation
  • air conditioning
  • lighting
  • entertainment systems
  • appliances
  • home security

This has been developed with the motivation of improved comfort, reduction of operational costs and energy consumption. Although smart homes provide a lot of comfort, it was not very efficient when different components were designed and implemented by different producers.

Evolution of KNX

In order to overcome efficiency and effectiveness problems, 15 producers came together in 1990 and described EIB (European Installation Bus) which formerly developed a European standard for home automation systems and hence, allow different components to communicate via the same bus, making them more efficient. In 2006, EIB became KNX and more than 120 partners all over the world joined. On top of that several open source communication protocols are able to communicate via gateways.

The KNX standard allows producers to easily develop their products which are compatible within any KNX based home automation system. It also allows customers to make sure that all their home automation systems work as a complete, integrated system. This guarantees a safer and more efficient way of operation at all stages.

Advantages of KNX

The advantages are that any building equipped with KNX can control itself to a very high degree. You can also control it from wherever you want: any internet-enabled device allows you do remotely control your house, be it opening or closing blinds, altering room temperature, as well as turning lights on/off.

This is what KNX standardization is all about: allowing various different operators to operate from a single control unit and provide you comfort while saving you money!

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