Nokia To Launch Phone-based Home Control Center In 2009

Finnish Phone giant Nokia will ship a complete solution, the Z-wave Home Control Center, that allows you to control your home system through a web-enabled mobile browser, as early as next year.

The HCC Platform will apparently be an open one, in a bid to improve interoperability and cut costs associated with proprietary solutions. In effect, Nokia wants to replicate what Google has done with Android but for Home automation instead.

Another great thing with HCC is that it won't be limited to Nokia mobile phones (ed: otherwise there would be no point) or even personal computers.

Ultimately, this means that your phone should allow you to control everything from your electricity usage to other mundane objects like security sensors, heating, water cooler and other electrical devices, as long as they are Z-Wave or Zigbee compliant.

To kick start the project, Nokia will partner with one of Europe's biggest energy companies, RWE (which owns UK-based nPower), to develop a "comprehensive solution for managing energy consumption and CO2 footage at home".

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Expect a full size demonstration at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress next February.

Sky already allows you to remote control your Sky box from anywhere using the Sky Anytime Mobile service for free.