Aftek - All Set To Digitise New-Age Home

Aftek Infosys - Building Homes For Gadget Freaks

If you are likely to miss your favorite soap opera as you are away from home, simply instruct your computer to record it for you so that you watch it at leisure. If your kids don't return home in time for the evening, click a button and check on the close circuit TV in which part of the society compound they are playing. What sounds like science fiction is now about to reach your doorstep as the wave of digital homes is about to sweep you. Even as the country's fully digitalised housing complex is nearing completion, the demand for technology enabled "Intelligent" homes is already picking up.

According to Chandrashekhar Raje, vice-president (technology solutions), at Aftek Infosys Limited the solution developed by his company to offer to the construction industry proved successful, it is now ready to go national. Aftek has introduced the concept product in housing projects in Pune, and will be operational in a couple of months. "We have integrated security, safety, control, automation, communication and entertainment to make homes fully digital," Raje said. Aftek has developed the technology necessary to integrate the functions of different devices and gadgets to make them user friendly. "There are people who offer security solutions or safety mechanism or digital entertainment, but we have harnessed all these features in one technology, to create intelligent homes" Raje said. And, predictably the tech savvy gen-next has lapped up the 100 homes. "We are also fully booked the second phase," says promoter Manoj Agarwal.

Confirming the increasing buyer interest in the concept of intelligent homes, Rohit Gera, Director of Gera Developments Pvt Ltd, said one has to be cautious when understanding what is intelligent. "The features obtainable in intelligent homes have been offered in bits and pieces, as we have sensor for passage lighting, door phones or automated safety doors or garage entrances," he pointed out. The key lies in integrating these individual devices, he stresses. According to Raje, the technology, to be made affordable, has to be used where there are a certain number of homes are being built. About 100 units seems to be a workable number," he explains. Of course there is a cost angle to the digitalised homes concept.