connectedhome.io

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About Us

The Connected Home Consortium has been established to help UK housing providers prepare for the significant changes in their businesses likely to emerge as a result of massive recent advances in communications technologies and data analytics.
Launched in February 2015 by Nick Atkin, CEO of Halton Housing Trust, Matthew Fox,  ex-CEO of Viridian and Matt Leach, CEO of HACT, the Consortium aims to bring together both housing providers and leaders in the field of connected homes technologies to help  UK housing providers achieve the step change in business performance offered by the Internet of Things.
We are currently recruiting members from both the housing provider and technology sectors to support the biggest programme of technological and business change the housing sector has yet experienced.

What Us The Internet Of Things?

The “Internet of Things” (IoT) is a term used to describe the very rapid growthincreasing ubiquity of connected technologies embedded in everyday household objects – from smart lightbulbs to intelligent central heating systems. It is a rapidly growing marketplace – estimated to triple in size between 2014 and 2020 – with much of that growth being driven by the emergence of technologies aimed at transforming the ways in which people use and experience their homes.
Smart heating systems are now emerging onto the market on a significant scale, offering better levels of home comfort and lower fuel bills at a price point well below levels of investment previously targeted at home insulation.  Smart locks offer new ways to secure properties and manage entry at price points that are now not significantly higher than conventional deadbolts.
Connected water sensors and instrumented boilers offer the prospect of faster, cheaper ways of identifying maintenance priorities in managed properties.  Noise and movement sensors may provide radically more efficient ways of monitoring and managing tenancies and maintaining assets. Big data-driven insights from streaming sensor technology offer the prospect of a revolution in the ways in which housing providers use data in their businesses.
Whilst many of these technologies have – initially – been targeted at owner-occupiers, many also offer social landlords massive new opportunities to rethink their businesses, delivering better services to customers whilst generating greater value for money through technology-driven business transformation.

Bringing The Internet Of Things To The Uk Housing Sector

Whilst the rapid growth of what is becoming the biggest new market for housing-based products offers exciting new opportunities for landlords to transform their businesses,  that rate of innovation and change also presents challenges:
• Identifying the opportunities that the internet of things offers landlord businesses at  a strategic level
• Understanding the ways in which new connected technologies might be levered to drive VFM and support business transformation objectives
• Navigating a rapidly changing marketplace and ensuring that buying decisions are informed by the best possible market information
• Assessing the robustness of new and emerging technologies; their potential to integrate into landlord businesses; futureproofing and compatibility; and value for money
• Building the business case for investment in particular IoT technology based solutions
• Gaining access to shared practice across the housing sector in what is a very new area  of focus for many businesses.
Internet of Things innovators also face challenges in ensuring their products meet the specific needs of UK housing providers – a market sector responsible for some 1 in 5 homes across England and Wales: Understanding the specific needs of social landlord businesses which may differ significantly from those of owner occupiers
• Accessing housing providers to obtain market insight and inform product development
• Benefiting from the potential to trial and pilot products offered by a landlord sector with access to significant numbers of homes and households across the UK.

The Role Of The Consortium

The Connected Home Consortium, initially being incubated within HACT – the UK  housing sector’s ideas and innovation agency – will seek to address these issues in  the following ways:
• Providing strategic advice to social housing providers on the emerging IoT market  and the opportunities it provides to social housing.
• Delivering regular market analysis and buying advice on the basis of the only  industry-wide independent assessments of IoT technologies when applied in a social housing setting.
• Bringing together technology sector innovators and forward-thinking landlords to identify the products that need developing to meet landlord needs, and the opportunities for business transformation offered by the cutting edge of the Internet  of Things revolution.
• Providing a forum in which UK housing providers can share practice and experience  a very new area of business development.
• Showcasing the latest solutions to the UK housing sector, and building relationships between technology providers and the housing market.
• Brokering pilots of new technologies in Cconsortium members’ homes, in a sector  in which the UK technology industry is taking a leading role in developing new  business-focused solutions.
The Connected Home Consortium is currently brokering a number of early pilots of new technologies in housing providers, and engaging with a wider group of technology partners with an interest in engaging further with the UK housing sector.
The Consortium’s first Connected Home market analyses and performance ratings are currently being discussed with technology suppliers ahead of publication in April 2015.

Housing Provider Member Benefits

Regular market bulletins – identifying new developments in the connected home marketplace – ensuring that you know where the market is going.
Regularly updated buying guides, product appraisals and product assessment criteria – supporting your business as you start to make procurement decisions in this space.
Direct business engagement – events aimed at letting you engage directly with technology companies at the cutting edge of the connected home revolution, helping you understand the future better and influence and inform the delivery of new products into the housing marketplace.
Bimonthly seminars – exploring in depth the potential offered by specific technologies to landlord businesses. Once a year conference – bringing together the latest thinking on the internet of things.

Cost of membership
£5,000 per year +vat

If you are interested in becoming a part of the Consortium or just finding out more, please contact
Matt Leach (matt.leach@hact.org.uk)
or Matthew Fox (mafufox@btinternet.com)

@ConnectedHomeC