Future development and environmental effectiveness of 'Smart Home' buildings in Austria

The paper describes the cost effectiveness of Smart Homes, also called Intelligent Homes, and compares the economical factor between these and regular households by the example of a typical Austrian household. While Smart Homes become more and more important due to improvements of life quality and safety, this paper proves the environmental factor of the technology. At the beginning of the paper, the characteristics of a Smart Home will be shown and analysed. Advantages and disadvantages will be matched to determine an energy factor with which it is possible to compare regular households with Smart Homes. To make the comparison possible and lifelike, a variety of households in different Austrian provinces will be stated and their energy consumption will be defined. Furthermore, to make the information more comprehensible for the reader, the gained knowledge will be compared with specific energy costs of some Austrian energy providers.