AI and Machine Learning in Housing

We’ve witnessed rapid adoption in relatively little time of ‘smart’, connected technology in our home environments - most obviously, smart TVs, personal assistants like Alexa and our smart phones. However, with the ability to link almost any appliance or device to the internet and create a ‘connected’ home, it’s easy to see how AI will help remove routine tasks and deliver a service to home owners.

It’s already possible to use personal assistants to turn on lights, adjust the temperature and monitor a property via a smartphone, so imagine going a step further where the home has the ability to treat its owners as guests – it can pre-empt your time of arrival, turn on the oven, close the curtains, unlock the doors ready for you to walk into the house – it has the information upon which to make the decisions to perform the tasks required.

More than that it can learn by ‘observing’ the routine tasks performed by humans, analysing which rooms you spend time in, adjusting heat and light accordingly and making the home more cost efficient. There has long been a notion that the fridge will reorder the foods you’re running out of by predicting when you’ll have consumed them, or via bar code identification, see that it has gone from the fridge. And no longer will you worry that you’ve left something plugged in – the iron, your hair straighteners – the house will know that the appliance shouldn’t be on and switch it off. You’ll simply put your coat on and leave for the day, leaving the house to take care of the rest.

In social housing situations it’s easy to see how AI will deliver a number of advantages to both housing providers and their tenants. 

1. Keeping on top of maintenance schedules will be a thing of the past as the house knows what needs maintaining and when - triggering the relevant requests to the correct departments involved in looking after a property.
2. Social care – looking after the elderly - the house will be able to perform routine tasks with little or no intervention making life so much easier and helping to keep routines in check. The house will become a digital carer alongside human ones.
3. Energy Saving – reducing the energy required to power our homes and reducing the cost in line with those savings. Smart homes will be able to switch off devices reducing monthly bills.
4. Security – helping tenants keep their homes and their belongings safer than ever before via monitoring on smart devices and warning triggers based upon predicted behaviours. It may also prevent fires or other risks to housing by flagging up maintenance issues early that there are no resulting emergencies – and if one does occur, activating sprinkler systems and alarms for example.
5. Helping fitness and health – the healthier we are, the more in control of our lives we are having a huge knock on effect to just about everything else. In simplifying your life, it’s possible that a smart home will be able to predict your work out goals too and book you onto classes, put them in your calendar and keep you active and healthy. 

With AI delivering a smart home to look after you, helping to remove routine tasks from your life – you will have time to do more of what makes you happy, healthy and living life to the full.