Now it’s even easier to maintain a healthy indoor climate with new compatibility with Google Assistant. This means you can control your electric or solar-powered VELUX window, shutters and blinds, using Google Assistant and the product will be visible in the Google Home app.
 

VELUX ACTIVE brings together a smartphone app, an indoor climate sensor, a departure switch and an internet gateway run by advanced algorithms that can control the fully-automated operation of roof windows, blinds, awnings and shutters. The algorithm can also be set to run on pre-defined timings, for example if you do not want your system to operate during specific timings, such as when you are asleep or on vacation.

Knowing that most of us spend 90% of our time indoors, maximising our comfort in our homes should be a priority. We also know that it’s very important for our health to let fresh air into the home and keep it ventilated. For the winter months specifically, being able to customise your indoor climate through voice control is useful for many different reasons:

• When you’re settled on the sofa, under a blanket and about to put a film on the TV, what could be better than being able to put the blinds on your roof window down without having to get up?
• When you’ve cooked a meal and want to air the kitchen to get rid of CO₂ and any food odours
• If you’ve had the fire or a scented candle lit and want to ventilate the room
• Airing your bedroom in the morning or before going to bed

VELUX ACTIVE with NETATMO - an integrated system in one kit - addresses increasing global demand for smarter, healthier homes. With this new product, VELUX enters the fast-growing smart home market with a solution going beyond simple convenience to creating better and healthier indoor living conditions in homes around the world.

Built on the newest smart-sensor technology, developed in collaboration with French tech company and smart-home leader Netamo, the VELUX ACTIVE smart-home system integrates the newest smart sensor technology and thus thinks and acts on the consumer’s behalf. Smart sensors monitor the temperature, humidity and CO2 concentration inside the home which activates the system to automatically control the roof windows.

It is the first smart-home system launched within the global window business that succeeds in combining – in one solution – a smartphone app, an indoor climate sensor, a departure switch and an internet gateway run by advanced algorithms controlling the fully-automated operation of both roof windows, blinds and shutters to improve indoor climate and prevent overheating.

It is a system designed on science-based indoor climate parameters in joint collaboration with VELUX engineers and Netatmo tech experts.

The system comes with its own app allowing people to manage their entire indoor climate control system according to personal needs and external weather data via a few touches on their phone.

For customers with an iPhone and iPad, the smart-home system also connects with Apple’s smart-home app Apple Home, enabling homeowners for the first time ever to operate their roof windows, blinds and shutters using voice-control assistant Siri.

Smart algorithms manage your indoor climate for you
Sensors placed in the room register when it is either too hot or too humid or when the concentration of CO2 is too high and sends this information to the system’s gateway in order to rectify the situation. The indoor data is then processed along with weather data in a gateway, using advanced algorithms to calculate if the indoor climate can be improved by opening the roof window or rolling down blinds or shutters to prevent overheating.

With this new system, VELUX has moved the roof window from being a stationary product to an interactive, intelligent unit with the potential to constantly evolve through developing further algorithms to control the system.

“This is the first version of our smart-home system, which we will continue to develop based on feedback from users. By virtue of its digital nature, we’re able to constantly improve it, which means users as an add-on automatically receive the newest upgrades and added functions, as we advance the software,” continued Bang.

Smart homes are the future
​Worldwide, the smart-home market is currently valued at around $31.4 billion and predicted to grow to around $53.45 billion by 2022 (Statista 2018). By plugging roof windows into the ‘smart’ world and creating a solution that is compatible with various smart-home platforms, as well as connecting with other smart products and apps, VELUX has created a solution which will strengthen its consumer relevance in the years to come.

VELUX hopes to significantly increase sales of its motorised windows following the release of this new system as tech-savvy consumers flock to own the latest technology for their home.

Healthier indoor climate drives consumers 
The rising number of unhealthy homes is another strong driver behind The VELUX Group’s strategic move into the smart home marketplace.

With one out of six Europeans living in unhealthy buildings, characterised by damp, lack of daylight, inadequate heating during the winter or overheating during the summer (Healthy Homes Barometer 2017), there is a huge potential for renovating the existing building stock – VELUX ACTIVE offers a solution to these issues.

Modern-day living has turned us into an indoor generation, spending (according to World Health Organisation) up to 90 percent our time indoors, making the air we breathe just as important as the food we eat or the water we drink. However, few people are aware that indoor air can be up to five times more polluted than outside, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. In a recent worldwide YouGov survey, 8 out of 10 Americans and Europeans stated they were unaware that indoor air can be more polluted than outdoor air.

Another survey also highlighted a perception gap between the recommended ventilation requirements for a modern-day home and consumers’ understanding of adequate home ventilation. 82 percent of Europeans believe that they ventilate their homes a lot but, in reality, only 40 percent ventilate for the recommended two to four times a day. VELUX ACTIVE offers a solution to insufficiently ventilated homes with its automatic regulation of indoor climate and airing intervals.

By offering an intuitive solution to improving the indoor comfort of millions of people’s homes, VELUX is future proofing the business for years to come with a truly innovative product, making homes healthier.

VELUX today announces a partnership with revolutionary smart home company Netatmo. VELUX is working with Netatmo to develop innovative indoor climate solutions called VELUX Active. Both the partnership and the product concept are being announced today, in the context of CES Unveiled – the preview to the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, USA.

The first VELUX ACTIVE products are expected to launch July  2018. They will include WiFi gateway and smart controls for VELUX Integra roof windows and sunscreening products, along with a control app for iOS and Android. Based on a range of indoor climate parameters, such as temperature, sunlight levels, humidity, and CO₂ levels users will be able to automate roof window and sunscreen operation - thereby ensuring the optimum indoor climate in a home at all times.

VELUX ACTIVE has also been awarded two prestigious CES 2017 awards in the Smart Home and Eco-design & Sustainable Technologies categories.

Smart homes and home automation are predicted to be one of the next big consumer trends, with smart home revenue set to quadruple to almost 65 billion USD by 2020 [Statista, 2016] as more and more products in the home are online and inter-connected.

As part of its strategy on smart homes and the Internet of Things, in August 2016 VELUX also announced a collaboration with Apple, to develop products compatible with Apple’s HomeKit smart home platform.

Bringing the internet of things into your home, the VELUX Group believes that home automation is crucial to the future development of the building industry and other industries selling products for our homes.

Furthermore, as healthier homes are more important than ever to consumers, proven by the VELUX Group’s Healthy Homes Barometer 2016, the group believes that smart homes will enable more people to take steps to improve the state of their home.

The VELUX Group expects to have its first product solutions integrated to the Apple HomeKit platform in the course of 2018.

For more information about the updates to Apple HomeKit, see the WWDC keynote presentations on 13^th, 14^th and 15^th June from San Francisco, California.