It will probably come as no surprise to learn that Bill Gates lives in an automated house. Everything has been designed to match the requirements of the occupants who, on top of countless creature comforts, can have their choice of music follow them from room to room, with even the swimming-pool equipped to play underwater music. The compound also has an artificial estuary, which is going to be stocked with cut-throat (is it possible that Bill Gates has a sense of humour?) trout.
It sounds like a billionaire's dream, unattainable to the rest of us - the Gates compound is said to have cost over $53 million. But the technology used for home automation has been available for 30 years, and is used by some five million households in North America.
Irish people have started focusing on home automation from a different angle. In the US and Britain it is a hobbyists' market. People who like to fiddle with electronics set up their homes so the kettle switches itself on before they arrive home, or the garage door opens as their car sweeps around the corner.
In Ireland, people tend to use automation for security, with cameras and automatic timers that put on lights and draw curtains - and also for maintaining second homes from a distance, says Philip Bain of CHC Aerial Satellite in Lisburn, a family firm which has diversified from its basic satellite business into selling X10 home automation kits.
If this all sounds a little get-alife-ish, think about the savings. One single teenager storming through a house leaving a trail of lights, televisions, stereos and immersions switched on can bring a joyous sparkle to the eyes of ESB accountants. But people who set up the lights and TV and stereo to switch off automatically when a sensor fails to detect movement in a room for 20 minutes can make quite dramatic savings.
When TG4 announces a sudden frost in May, people in Dublin phone Donegal, where their call automatically switches on the central heating in their country cottage - preventing a freeze-up followed by expensive burst water-pipes.
X10, the technology that powers most home automation, was invented in Scotland by Pico Electronics in the 1970s, and is now manufactured in China and exported all over the world.
The X10 allows compatible devices communicate over the existing mains wiring of your house after the installation of a transmitter module and a receiver module. The transmitter sends a signal superimposed on the mains AC power line which can be interpreted by the receiver module anywhere in the house.
It is easy to use. CHC sells various kits, of which the most popular is a controller with two units, one for a lamp, the other for another appliance. You plug all three in, stick the controller's lead into your computer's USB port, and power up the software. The software shows the lamp appliance and the other appliance, and you enter settings - let's say you want the lamp to switch on at 5 p.m. and off at 10 p.m., and the swish curtain-draw machine to draw the curtains at 5 p.m. and open them at 7 a.m.
Once you have set these times, the computer does not have to see the X10 devices again unless you want to change the timings. The information is stored on a chip in the controller, and if it and the other modules are plugged in, they go ahead and do their thing. You can add on more modules to control more things: radios, computers, lights.
Getting more sophisticated, there is a version that lets you use a remote control like the one for your TV to control appliances all over the house. You can add telephone transponders if you want to use the phone to switch things on and off, and motion sensors if you want motion to trigger the switches. You can get an electronic "dog" that will yap if someone comes near the door.
X10 is also used invisibly to power various industrial machines, like the gadgets that open and shut greenhouse windows automatically as the temperature rises and falls.
One reason that home automation has been adopted more readily in the US is the economy of scale: the US electrical system is standardised for vast numbers of customers, so that huge orders of equipment bring down the price. An X10 gadget that sells for £30 here typically costs £3 in the US.
Mike Huggins of Let's Automate, a British website that sells home automation equipment online, was told by his distributor that part of the reason for the high European prices is that the US uses two standards: X10 and X10 Pro, whereas in Europe only the higher-quality and less interference-prone X10 Pro standard is sold.
In 1998, Stamford Homes in Peterborough, England, built 75 houses in a new township called Hampton Hargate. The development caused such a feeding frenzy among home-viewers that Stamford had to limit numbers allowed into the show home.
The three-storey houses built on reclaimed land with a lake view were completely automated, with CCTV cameras at the front door so people could see on their TV who was at the door. The cameras can also be turned to view the children's play area in front of the houses.
Stamford targeted young professionals, and installed Connect Home, an integrated system which combines CCTV, Internet cabling, digital satellite TV access, ISDN connections and X10.
The houses sold immediately - 13 sold on the weekend launch, which might not be startling in Ireland but certainly was in 1998 in the English midlands. The estate won the What House Award for best future homes, and Stamford built another automated estate in Lincoln.
With 40 per cent of people expected to be working partly or wholly from home within the next 10 years, automation is likely to become an increasingly common pre-requisite.
CHC in Lisburn is in discussion with one of the country's biggest building companies, which wants to test-run a built-in home automation system in its next tranche of houses. CHC's Philip Bain says the £500 sterling or so cost of building in automation is negligible when put against a house priced at a quarter of a million.
Sites and sources:
CHC Aerial Satellite in Lisburn is at www.chcdigital.co.uk
Let's Automate is at www.letsautomate.com.
Argos carries CCTV cameras with motion detectors which link into your TV for £80 - very easy to install, you just run the wiring into the back of your television set. www.argos.co.uk
Stamford Homes is at www.stamford-homes.co.uk.
Cix, the ISP which is the British techies' favourite hangout, has a not-awfully-active home automation forum, though you have to pay to join Cix (www.cix.co.uk).
Guided tour of Bill Gates's house at: http:// www.usnews.com/usnews/nycu/tech/billgate/gatehigh.htm