In the early 20th Century, only the wealthiest had power and lighting within their homes, everyone else relied on alternative methods such as oil and wick to light the home after dark and carry out daily tasks. The introduction of lighting and power to homes allowed people to carry out these daily tasks, later than usual and without exerting as much physical effort as before.

The power of automation continued to infiltrate the home and improve quality of life throughout the 20th and 21st century. The vacuum cleaner, the washing machine, the fridge, the oven hit the market and were adopted by those that could afford. Once recognised as essential items of the home for improving day to day tasks, they were infiltrated through the housing market. You couldn't imagine living in a home in the 21st century without one of these items.

Next came the power of communication and the ability to go to the shops in the comfort of your living room. Telephone lines very quickly became Teleshopping and then became the key to the world wide web servicing over 4.3billion different IP's. This exhaustion of IPV4 has paved the way for IPV6 with the ability to service an extraordinary 10x10^38 IP addresses opening up the possibility for a connected home.

So why am I telling you all of this? I believe the next infiltration of automation is here, the wealthy have been adopting it for over 10 years already. Smartphones make up 60% of the mobile devices market and over a fifth of all UK homes own a tablet, each of which harness the ability to double up as remote for the home with a user friendly interface and seamless control. From the comfort of your bed you can bring up the blinds, turn off and on the lights, turn the television on and change the channel. You can put your favourite songs on any set of speakers as you walk around your home and even share this ability with your family and friends when they visit your home. This automation can have substantial benefits in reducing energy consumption whilst significantly improving quality living within the home. Furthermore it is still too early to predict how the power of this home automation could grow in 10 or 20 years time.

One of the governments many agendas in achieving the 2050 80% carbon reduction target is a wide spread national retrofit incentive to improve the efficiency and sustainability of UK homes which make up 28% of energy usage in the UK. This gives contractors across the UK the perfect opportunity to begin installing modern automation technologies into the UK housing market with the vision of improving quality of life and efficient living.

I believe that is something worth investing in.