The Sunday New York Times has some nice introductory material on smart homes. They skate quickly by prices to devices and the smart grid. They write about putting the homeowner in control. They even show several home panels.
With only one screenshot, I cannot comment on the systems described. One looks more like a home theater console with a dishwasher added. Another allows scheduling of building systems, but gives no sign of interaction with and feedback from the power grid. Admitting that it might be based upon selection bias, the Echelon screen is the most interesting to me.
The Echelon product, shown above, is the only one that clearly indicates the economic aspect of each device. What it does not show is the effect of variable pricing on costs. What we need is Echelon (or someone else) sharing information like that in a standard format that consumer programmers can interact with. By consumer programmers, I mean that I want to see consumer oriented interfaces developed for the PC, for the Mac, for the iPhone, and for the Android.
Schedules, electrical use, and services are the important abstractions. Abstractions are the basis for standards, and interoperability. More importantly, abstract standards with prices are then at the level of business interactions. Such a standard is ready for third party management. Such a standard is ready for driving maintenance by value.
Check out the article, in the references below…