The first ‘home of the future’ comes to the UK

The first full development of family properties featuring Apple Home, Siri and Apple Homekit accessories has been built in the UK, Swedish housebuilder Trivselhus has announced.

Sommar Place in Milton Keynes is now the first UK housing development of family smart homes. It joins Dupli Casa in Germany, Safe House in Poland, and King of the Hill and the Wissioming Residence in the United States as the world’s technologically enabled builds of the future.

In partnership with placemaking experts Places for People, Trivselhus has developed a community of 39 smart homes, combining Scandinavian design, precision finishing architecture and energy efficiency with innovative smart home technology from Apple.

Apple Homekit accessories, in particular, are fitted as standard and fully interconnected throughout each home. The technology is customisable and can be tailored to a family’s individual preferences to enhance daily living while ensuring privacy and security.

Residents can use the Apple Home app on their iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch as well as activate Siri, HomePod and Apple TV on these devices.

Ken Forster, managing director of Trivselhus, commented: “To date, this level of connected technology integrated into the build of a new property has only been available in multi-million-pound, bespoke smart homes.”

“The technology has otherwise been available to retrofit, but this inevitably results in controls that are fragmented and therefore less seamless to use. It’s our mission at Trivselhus to develop family homes that have a positive impact on how people live.”

Forster said that technology is essential in easing people’s lives, so it is important that moving forward family homes are designed with smart home technology at their forefront.

He continued: “We’re proud that Sommar Place is leading the way in tech-enabled housing developments that are affordable, efficient and future-proof at a time when technology is developing at pace.”

Forster believes that the privacy and security of homeowners is paramount, which has led to the highly-secure, end-to-end encrypted Apple HomeKit accessories within Sommar Place.

David Cowans, group chief executive at Places for People, added: “Places for People is committed to driving innovation that improves the quality of life in our communities. That’s why we’re delighted to be partnering with Trivselhus on this ground-breaking development.”

“Sommar Place is a truly forward-thinking development, delivering the very best in Swedish energy-efficient design, combined with the latest in smart home technology – effectively future-proofing these homes for years to come.”

“Places for People has had a presence in Milton Keynes for many years as both a developer and landlord,” he went on. “Alongside our award-winning developments at Brooklands and Wolverton Park, we’re delighted to be working with Trivselhus to introduce innovative homes that are unique not only to Milton Keynes, but to the whole of the UK.”

Residents of Sommar Place can use Apple HomeKit to:

·         Automate their home when out and about, based on when they will be arriving back and who’s in. Customised scenes like ‘coming home’ can turn on the lights, set the heating to a desired temperature, play a favourite track and turn the kettle on as they pull into the drive.

·         Check in through installed cameras when not at home, or remotely turn off sockets at the wall in case anything was accidentally left on.

·         Set the mood while busy with a certain task. Customised scenes such as ‘movie night’ can bring the window blinds down, dim the lights, turn up the heating and bring up ‘favourites’ on the Apple TV.

·         Set the lights to turn on, the radio to start and the kettle to boil at the beginning of the day. The thermostat in the en-suite can be set and the towel rail warmed up. Parents can also be alerted by motion sensor if children wake up during the night.

Having built stylish low-energy homes in the UK for over 20 years, Trivselhus – which translates to ‘the house of wellbeing’ – builds houses that are built to sustain climatic conditions. This includes Climate Shield, a level of insulation and air tightness built into the closed panel timber frame walls during construction in Sweden.

Along with smart home technology, Sommar Place boasts plenty of space, combining high ceilings and large windows, complemented by lots of local green space, public transport and amenities within walking distance.

Sommar Place properties range from a two-bedroom apartment from £250,000 to four-bedroom townhouses selling for £450,000. These are being marketed by Connells Residential – part of the Connells Group.