In this edition of the Digital Home series we’ll discuss the second driving trend behind the Digital Home Design: Personalization.

While there a many versions and visions of what the next generation Digital Home will look like, one consistent theme appears throughout: human lifestyles are expected to change dramatically due to the popularity of ubiquitous computing technologies. These unobtrusive, mostly invisible technologies will make it possible to integrate various aspects of our lives, with the ultimate goal of humanity and technology living in harmony. We will see many Digital Home technologies arriving soon which will focus on improving: user experience,  spontaneous interaction, personalization, privacy protection, and interoperability.

Today's Personalized Digital Home can be built around personal devices like smart phones, ZWave or ZigBee wireless technology to control lights, home security, the television and other devices. Many companies and groups, however, are investing research and development to design the Digital Home of the future. Most of these companies, of course, have some form of vested interest in doing so. But all organizations are trying to answer the important question: what will consumers really want from a personalized Digital Home? Some interesting findings so far:

• The rise of the the personal home server is making it possible for consumers to manage all of their home multi-media requirements from one PC, including the coordination of home appliances and media. The personal home server also allows personalizing how appliances are used according to individual preferences. Consumers will be able to control and monitor the home through various devices that are portable or even wearable, and others that are embedded in the environment (for example: transmitting the contents of the fridge into a smartphone shopping list, automatically adjusting room temperature or recording the time someone arrives home).
• The personal home server will need to be backed by multi-terabyte storage (both in the home and for redundancy in the cloud). Users will be able keep an entire lifetime of personal media, and vast collections of purchase media for future viewing, reading, listening or sharing.
• The home will be fully wired for the Internet and video in every room. High definition video, surround sound and file security / privacy will also be desired for home users, many of whom will work from home.
• The future home will also make technology a lot more invisible and intuitive. LEDs and lights will respond to your moods. Your voice serving as your password for home applications, the flat-screen television and the entertainment system.
• There will also be more interactivity in the future home. Organic LED displays which are part of the wall design will enable any surface to be turned into a screensaver or interactive wallpaper, or a browser that displays videos, or images, games and interactive applications that respond to gestures.
• Gaming and entertainment will no longer be confined in one room. Gaming will be possible wherever you are - in the dining room, the living room or even the bedroom. Since your home will be Internet connected, your wall can be your interface to the Internet or to applications like calendar or a music player. A package of high-powered chipsets will run this multi-media experience, allowing multiple digital functions at the same time.
• Intelligent agents that learn will communicate with us about our needs. Voice, hands or even body movements can be used for multimodal input. In the not so distant future, we will be surrounded by interconnected intelligent devices, some of which we will carry around and most of which will probably be permanently switched on. Communication will not be reduced to interaction among people; devices will also communicate with us and among themselves on our behalf.

In our next article we’ll discuss another aspect of the future Digital home: it’s ability to age with you and adapt to your needs as time goes on.