15 May, 2022
KAUST Smart Home has recently been featured on MBC TV. It is a collaboration between Facilities Management, KAUST Smart and Community Life.
The smart home is a living space that embodies the values of KAUST. The team’s goal in building the house was to build the smart home around the human experience and not just about gadgets. Everything had to focus on making the home optimally livable for users, updating technology based on the user’s changing needs, and also making it accessible for people with mobility issues.
In 2019, there was a detailed consultation period with KAUST community members about what they would look for in a smart home. Using this information, the team behind making the KAUST Smart Home concept a reality devised six design principles to build the home. See more info here.
The Smart Home has received a LEED platinum certification and is designed to be near-to-net-zero. It reduces its carbon footprint through its energy-efficient design and renewable energy integration.
It boasts the latest in water preservation and conservation technologies, such as the conversion of solar energy to drinkable water through hydro-panels, and a system that locally recycles the greywater and uses it for irrigation and flush tanks.
Several energy generative technologies are used to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels for electricity.
The smart home is partly cooled through geothermal heat exchange as excess heat is led out of the home into the ground.
Eight different local KAUST startups integrate their technology in the house as well as multiple companies, vendors and collaborators. The Smart Home is a living lab and it provides data that can educate and assist in making choices for future implementation on a larger scale.