NEC Electronics America Demonstrated Smart Home Products Strength

At last month’s DistribuTECH in Florida NEC Electronics America demonstrated a range of smart home products and solutions through the use of a prototype smart home.  The Technologies developed to Zigbee standards include LED lighting, smart thermostats, user control-panel and smart meters. NEC demonstrated that with these systems we can take an active approach to energy management and unlike before it is easier with its display and microcontroller (MCU) solutions.

Highlighted Technologies

Smart Meter: Developed using NEC’s V850ES/Jx3 MCU and Zigbee Pro communication.  The NEC smart meter supports the Smart Energy Profile. The smart meter is used to communicate electricity usage between the electricity provider and the home.  It has a built-in TFT LCD display which enables users to monitor their energy usage and make adjustments as needed in real-time.

Smart Climate Control and Lighting: The model home demonstrated NEC Electronics’ Smart Climate Control and lighting built with NEC’s 8-bit 78K0/Lx3, 78K0/Ix2 and multi-channel high current drive (HCD)/LED MCUs with the Zigbee Pro. network.  It shows how consumers can have a more control of their heating and lighting, wired and wirelessly.

At the heart of NEC Electronics model smart home was the use of Zigbee and PLC (Powerline Communication) technology. According to NEC Electronics the smart home highlights “NEC Electronics America’s  PLC, Zigbee, custom system-on-chip (Soc), display and microcontroller technologies in a variety of applications design to provide communications solutions that enables a connected home experience.”