tech

Sekisui House, Toshiba and Honda build smart house

5 Comments

Sekisui House Ltd, Toshiba Corp and Honda Motor Co have jointly built a new demonstration test house in Saitama City and have begun verification of the advanced lifestyle with their information technologies, personal mobility and energy management technologies designed to realize comprehensive control over supply and demand of energy for houses, mobility products and community.

The new demonstration test house is a fully livable two-family house designed to further advance technologies in real world that will support future life by testing new technological challenges such as the mutual supply of electricity and hot water generated in the two households, non-contact recharging of an electric vehicle, electric supply from the vehicles to the home and community, and the creation of the residential space that enhances the usability of personal mobility products. For example, surplus electricity by photovoltaic generation in one of the two households can be used in another household.

Under a brand vision of "SLOW & SMART," Sekisui House has been promoting various initiatives to utilize advanced technologies for a comfortable and enjoyable lifestyle. While envisioning popularization of "net zero-energy" houses in 2020, Sekisui House has been offering a smart house, under the brand name of "Green First Zero," which is equipped with various energy creation and saving technologies optimally controlled by HEMS (home energy management system).

In order to accomplish a stable energy supply and creation of comfortable and efficient living space, Toshiba has been offering solutions that combine energy devices, smart home appliances and cloud services. Such solutions have been provided in a broad range of forms from household appliances for a household to the "demand-response" demonstration for a community which connect houses and the community.

Honda built two demonstration test houses in Saitama in April 2012 and Honda Smart Home U.S. in California earlier this year, and has been verifying the effectiveness of its energy management technologies which enable in-house energy production and consumption. Honda also has been studying the ideal future of personal mobility.

Moreover, in November 2013, the three companies jointly exhibited at the SMART MOBILITY CITY 2013, an organizer-themed project held within the venue of the 43rd Tokyo Motor Show. Through this exhibit, the three companies collaborated beyond the boundaries of industries and proposed a future lifestyle where houses, electric appliances and automobiles are linked to one another.

This time, the three companies envisioned an enjoyable lifestyle that is sustainable throughout the course of a person's lifetime, as well as a 2020 lifestyle of the future where houses and mobility products emit zero CO2, and such lifestyles were embodied in the newly-built fully livable two-family demonstration test house. Utilizing this new test house, the three companies will conduct various verification tests with the aim to establish technologies that realize a futuristic lifestyle and to put such technologies into practical use.

© JCN Newswire

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

5 Comments
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As usual, big on generalist nuance, low on detail.

Is it a passive house? Does it use heat pumps, proper insulation and non-metallic windows?

If not, there's nothing new here.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I would honestly like to learn about this type of energy efficient house, but this article doesn`t tell us anything useful. It provides us with no details about how this house marks a breakthrough (ie how it differs from other smart houses being developed) nor does it really tell us any information about the houses themselves. These are details that a news article (as opposed to a company's own PR) should contain to allow the reader to infer just how significant this is.

Also the writing is of incredibly poor quality. Just look at the first sentence of the last paragraph - not only is it an incomprehensible run-on sentence, but it contains the word "lifestyle" three times. This is by no means an exception, the entire article is written in roughly the same style.

I would humbly suggest that future articles from "JCN Newswire" be given a brief read-over before they are posted here.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I often watch houses being built here in Beppu and im always amazed that they concentrait on Solar Panels on the roof and ignor all the free energy a few meters under the ground and only use it for Onsens.

Japan should copy Iceland they could be self sufficient in Geothermal energy within a few years and seal the Tepco management up in Fukushima for eternity

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I often marvel at how they create such technologically advanced houses and yet never manage to make a decent size truly useful kitchen but always have luxurious storage for the golf clubs. I think the house designers here just have no idea about whats really important. So the house is smart but the floor plans are often lacking. Also in their designs I have noted the large atriums which seem to counter the idea of ECO.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

i love old japanese homes and its styles, my fear if creates "western" houses and ruins the cultural style that makes japan so great

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

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