SmartHouse Code of Practice

The Code of Practice developed under the SmartHouse Standardisation Initiative has provided the following:

Part 1 - Introduction
Part 2 - The environment of the SmartHouse
This section concerns market sectors where the SmartHouse is situated and provides the reason for any activity in the SmartHouse. It is important to understand that without consumers and the activity of service providers, manufacturers and system designers in meeting the needs of consumers, a SmartHouse is unnecessary.  This section provides an understanding the SmartHouse environment, of the needs of the individual Consumer or owner of the system and the demands of Service Providers in providing the Consumer with appropriate applications and services and with optimal user interfaces.
We are all consumers and our needs influence the services that are developed for us to use. The provision of services to us as consumers creates a set of requirements on what is provided in the SmartHouse as systems, networks, equipment and user interfaces. It also creates a demand for the provision of communication networks from the service provider to the SmartHouse. Therefore the perspective of the Consumer and how the service provider needs to fulfil consumer expectations is an essential part of this Code of Practice. This Part consists of subsections that illustrate:
-    The reason for a SmartHouse and why its value is more than the sum of its parts;
-    the Consumer’s needs and requirements; and
-    the Service Provider’s aims and objectives in meeting the consumer’s needs
Part 3 - The SmartHouse system, product development and use
This part is divided into sections each describing the process for different aspects of the system in order to deliver the optimal System Design to fulfil the consumers requirements.
It is essential that the Components (products, services and applications) that are used in the SmartHouse are effective and easy to use and fulfil the consumer’s needs. One consideration of this part is to understand how the overall architecture of service supply to the end user can be defined. There are many entities in the Service Supply Chain each of which must satisfy the requirements of the service as provided to the consumer and must satisfy that each entity’s business case. The sections of Part 3 are divided into Systems (what is needed to supply systems and applications) and Components the devices that the consumer interfaces with. They are as follows:
Part 3a - Systems
-    Architectures
-    The Wide Area and its Network Operators and delivery media
-    The Home Networks and their Media
-    Residential Gateways; and
-    Security
Part 3b - Components
-    Service and Application development
-    Home Equipment
-    User Interfaces
Part 4 - Installation
This part describes the processes that the Installer, Maintainer and Manager of the SmartHouse system should consider. It is placed last because the installer may need to understand and reference information from the preceding sections and partly because the installer may well be the system designer of a SmartHouse as well as managing the Installation Process. This part has one section.
-    The Installation Process

Annexes providing:
-    glossary of terms,
-    applicable standards,
-    additional material
-    and bibliography.

Sections of the Code of Practice
The Introduction and each following section deliver material that provides:
-    At the highest level, anyone with some knowledge of what may be possible
-    At the next level, any practitioner of the SmartHouse with details of best practice
-    At the lowest level, the system designer overall and experts in the specific area of the section,   
     recommendations for implementing the SmartHouse
The four parts focus on the process of selecting from a wide range of possible options, what standards and practices to use and how to use them in configuring and installing systems for the SmartHouse. Because there are many ways in which this may be achieved, each subsection has a number of levels of description:
-    The first level is an introduction that outlines the major issues of the subsection
-    The second level describes the issues in greater detail and provides a decision process that assists the system
     designer in reaching appropriate design choices in the form of recommendations. Where decisions need to be
      made, then there are short descriptions of the issues.
-    The third level is to guide the user where decisions have to be made. Here there are references to appropriate
     standards, specifications and ongoing standards and research work. Since there are many interactions and
     dependencies with other sections, these too are referenced.

The Code of Practice is careful to specify in general and generic terms. It is felt to be very important that technology advance and new services should not in any way be impeded. It is the contention of the SmartHouse Standardisation Initiative that the SmartHouse Code of Practice contributes strongly to the aims of eEurope i2010 and greatly assists the “overall co-ordination of existing policies” in the area of the user of services, equipment and applications in and the services to the SmartHouse. It  helps ensure that incompatibilities between equipment, networks and services or any other impediment to the growth of services and broadband penetration are minimised. This will accelerate the objectives of eEurope 2005.

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