The concept of the home of the future, or a ‘smart home’, has been explored since at least the early 20th century. In a smart home, the residents would be able to control everything from lighting and heating to security, audio and video systems by the touch of a button, or perhaps just by entering a room, if the system was able to identify each resident and automatically adjust the settings to the person’s own preferences.

There are a few standards for home automation systems (aka domotics), like INSTEON and Z-Wave, for communicating with and automating different home electronic devices and appliances which normally work independently. Nokia’s idea now is to use the existing standards but employ the cell phone as the central control device for everything in the system.

The Nokia Home Control Center, due to go on sale at the end of next year, will run Linux as its operating system, meaning that third-party manufacturers of fridges, televisions, vacuum cleaners and other common appliances will be able to build compatible technology into their devices more easily and at low cost. Initially the system will be used to help people control just heating in their homes, but in the future many more systems should be able to connect up to the Home Control Center.

Nokia argues that while the building blocks for so-called smart home technology have been available for years, there has been no one, central device to pull all the devices together. A cell phone is an ideal device to control the system not just when the user’s at home, but also from away. Imagine running a hot bath so that it’s ready right when you arrive home after work?

Of course, other manufacturers will most likely come up with their own solutions, or are already doing so. And maybe there’s an easier way than what Nokia suggests to build at least a simple, but useful home control system. How about using just Bluetooth, infrared and SMS to control essential systems like heating and cooling? I remember some SMS-based solutions for security and heating have been on sale in Finland and probably some other countries for years already, and I’m sure in South Korea Samsung and LG are testing their own solutions.