Embedding internet technology for home automation

As more and more digital appliances populate our homes, networking them to form a home automation (HA) system not only becomes an option, but almost a necessity. While comfort, security, and energy efficiency can be provided by many existing systems, they all remain complex islands that are difficult to expand and customize. We propose Internet technology to remedy the situation and to become the future solution for HA. For this, we analyze the feasibility of today´s Internet technology with regard to traditional HA solutions. Furthermore, we present two case studies that substantiate the benefits of our proposal. As we will show, with IPv6 and 6LoWPAN, a single network serves the classical as well as emerging aspects of HA while concepts from the Web provide benefits for both, developers and users.