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74<br />
#Technology | Home<br />
HOME INNOVATION:<br />
BREAKING THE HABIT<br />
BY BENJAMIN GARNIER<br />
As new technologies are developing all around the world in an<br />
exponential way while global ecological issues have become a<br />
central when it comes to developing a business, humanity’s way<br />
of moving, buying, sharing has seen a lot of changes. Home has<br />
also become a field of innovation, where startups, design trends<br />
and new technologies meet to develop environmental-friendly,<br />
sustainable, connected and even virtual houses.<br />
Moving away from the Stone Age<br />
A house made of stones has long been the normal method to build a home.<br />
But many environmental questions have since then been raised, making the<br />
ecological performance of the house a crucial data to take into account<br />
when selling or renting a building. The less kWh the house produces, the<br />
highest-ranked it is. There are two solutions which clearly impact the<br />
ecological performance of a house: to build larger concrete walls in order to<br />
save energy and improve insulation or to find an alternate way of building,<br />
such as wooden houses, which have been trendy for, quite some time now.<br />
Northern Europe can enjoy the numerous local resources from endless<br />
forests to develop the real estate market with wooden houses, but it is not<br />
the same case everywhere. In other parts of Europe, this special market has<br />
difficulties to rise and become popular, mostly because of the building price<br />
which remain far higher than concrete houses.<br />
That is the direction Leko Homes decided to take. As a matter of fact,<br />
the French start-up that recently settled at the Technoport in Esch-sur-<br />
Alzette, Luxembourg, is trying to democratize the construction of wooden<br />
houses through an innovative process involving new technologies. Through<br />
3D prints, hardwood (instead of imported resinous wood) is gathered. By<br />
avoiding this importation and using new technologies, Leko offers a much<br />
lower a building price than typical wooden houses, which compete with<br />
contrete houses. Moreover, Leko offer a whole new thinking about the way<br />
a house has to stand, in order to gain space. In a typical house for instance,<br />
the boiler is in the cellar, the ventilation lays in the attic and the electric<br />
meter in the garage. Leko, inspired from the high-tech industry, developed a<br />
brand new CPU system where any technology needed to control the house<br />
lays into a concentrate space, called CPU Leko. The Leko app allows then<br />
the user to control the system through an application on a smartphone.<br />
A brand new vision<br />
«By using virtual reality, we’re placing the viewer inside a moment or a<br />
story», explained once Chris Milk, CEO of Within, a virtual reality technology<br />
company. The advantage then is to put a person in a context he cannot see<br />
without help from a technological device. As you buy a new property, the<br />
home is not set as you wish or not 100% ready to welcome you. Using your<br />
imagination can be interesting, but as powerful as it can be, imagination can<br />
be misleading.<br />
Then virtual reality can fill the gap between what is<br />
and what should be. Through the rooms «Les Hauts<br />
du Kirchberg», a luxury 22 apartments-complex,<br />
property development company LBH Immo launched<br />
a brand new way to visit future apartments. Using a<br />
state-of-the-art HTC Vive headset, the user dives<br />
into a 3D representation of his flat and can modify<br />
it, as he likes by controlling a remote. The creators<br />
of this headset, Cognytik, do not wish to hold on<br />
there and are expecting to develop new settings<br />
for these headsets, such as seeing what it looks like<br />
at night or even to hear surrounding noises. It was<br />
the first time real estate used VR in Luxembourg,<br />
and since the feedbacks are very satisfying, it will<br />
not be the last.<br />
Keep calm and connect<br />
Following the first evolutions of the Internet<br />
and the development of the social Web, the<br />
universalization of connected objects for multiple<br />
uses in different branches called Internet of Things<br />
(IoT) has permitted to develop tools to enhance<br />
the performance inside many branches. Spreading<br />
the Internet to many objects has been an asset for<br />
many businesses,<br />
The innovation opportunities through IoT inside<br />
a house are numerous: improving space design<br />
and tenant experience by using insights captured<br />
through smart devices and sensors on habits<br />
such as consumption, providing automated and<br />
anticipated maintenance that enable renters to<br />
customize their environment through IoT-enabled<br />
equipment.<br />
© Getty Images - Miguel Navarro<br />
<strong>BEAST</strong> MAGAZINE #8
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