Smart home Dubai, from before dawn to night

What the house does, hour by hour

Five moments in a Dubai day. The systems appear where they are used, not as a list.

1. Before dawn: the call to prayer

   The call to prayer plays in the rooms you chose, at the volume you chose, and nowhere else. The rest of the house is not woken. Path lights come up to a low level rather than full, and cooling starts again before anyone is up. You can silence any room from the panel or from the keypad beside the door.

2. Morning: ahead of the heat

   By nine the building is taking heat from the sun. Blinds on the east and south move first, so the glass stops loading heat into rooms that are about to be used, and cooling holds a set point instead of chasing one. The rooms are lit by daylight for most of the day, and electric light stays down until it is needed. Any blind can be driven by hand at any time.

3. Midday: the empty house

   With nobody home the house drops its load. Circuit-level metering shows what the pool pump, the chillers and the kitchen actually draw, so a figure replaces an estimate. Irrigation runs at the hour when the water reaches the roots instead of evaporating, and skips a cycle after rain. Cooling holds an empty room in a wider band rather than at comfort.

4. Evening: arriving, eating, people over

   One press sets the level across a room's fittings, lowers the pendants over the dining table and raises the terrace. The rooms nobody is in stay dark. Audio moves with the people rather than staying in one room. Cooling returns to comfort before the first guest arrives, not after. If a scene is wrong for the night, the keypad still raises the light.

5. Night: locking up, and the nights you are away

   With people asleep in it the house arms the perimeter only: doors, gates and the garden. The inside, including the hallway, is left unarmed. Path lighting drops to the lowest level that still lights the stairs. Cooling sets back in the rooms nobody sleeps in. When the house is empty for a week the away state arms everything, cameras record to the isolated network rather than the home Wi-Fi, irrigation and cooling hold, and a door or window opening sends a notification to your phone.