State of the art

Official Scope of CLC/TC 205 HBES:

To prepare standards for all aspects of home and building electronic systems in relation to the Information Society.  In more detail: To prepare standards to ensure integration of a wide spectrum of control applications and the control and management aspects of other applications in and around homes and buildings, including the gateways to different transmission media and public networks taking into account all matters of EMC and electrical and functional safety. TC 205 will not prepare device standards but the necessary performance requirements and necessary hardware and software interfaces. The standards should specify conformity tests. TC 205 will perform the work in close co-operation with relevant CENELEC TCs and those in CEN and ETSI.

Explanation of HBES

Various electronic devices are used in homes, buildings and similar environments (including their immediate surroundings) for several applications relevant to the home and/or building.

The expression «Home and Building Electronic System», «HBES», covers any combination of such electronic devices linked via a digital transmission network; the HBES includes a specification for this communication network.

Other names used like Home Control Network, «home control systems», «home systems», «building systems», «building automation system», etc., are only describing types of HBES and are not synonymous.

TC 205 concentrates on control applications

The scope of TC 205 covers all three classes of HBES, but for specification work TC 205 concentrates on HBES Class 1. For HBES class 2 and 3, the standards being developed by the relevant IT and multimedia committees will be adopted so as to not invent new IT and multimedia communication standards. TC 205, however, will take care of the consistency and coexistence of these parts with the control system part.

Note: The classes of home control systems are defined, depending on the transmission throughout capabilities:

	HBES Class 1: Home control system with transport capabilities for telecontrol applications such as: Control, Monitoring, Measurement, alarm, low speed data transfer e.g. for lighting, heating, food preparation, washing, energy management, water control, fire alarms, blinds control, different forms of security control, etc.
	HBES Class 2: Home control system with class 1 transport capabilities plus: Switched voice or other information transfer with similar bandwidth.
	HBES Class 3: Home control system with class 2 transport capabilities plus: Switched high quality sound and video transfer and high speed data transfer.

TC 205 covers Home and Building applications

Applications can also be broadly classified as home control and/or building control applications.
The limits between a home and a building, however, cannot always be clearly drawn, and TC 205 has felt no need for a systematic distinction in its standards.

CENELEC TC 205 provides the specification for the Field level and also provides specifications for the Automation level within the CEN/TC 247 standardization for controls for mechanical building services.

TC 205 defines standards for various media

A home network may be based on one or more communication media (for example power line carrier, twisted pair, coax cable, infrared or radio frequency) and may also be connected to outside networks (for example telephone networks, cable television, power supply networks and alarm networks). TC 205 (or its sub-committee SC 205A in the case of power line transmission) defines standards for transmission on the most common media.

Compliance with HBES series

A product claiming compliance with EN 50090 shall comply with the full series of EN 50090 standards according to EN 50090-8 for the chosen media.

Current and future key technologies:

Communication technologies:
protocols
interworking, object definition, application models,...
physical media technology (Infra-red, Powerline, Twisted Pair, RF)

Electronic technologies:
design of small and low cost communication interfaces

Relevant test procedures for EMC and electrical safety testing of distributed applications.

Consumer requirements

Consumer requirements cover Comfort, Energy saving, Flexibility for changes and additional applications, Interoperability of product systems, Installation and cabling issues in Home & Building, Connection with public networks and services provider organizations as well as Functional Safety aspects.
A new WG 16 “Standards for intelligent home and building / smart houses” has set to work.

The WG identified the bodies/committees that should be responsible for each of the recommendations and requirements listed by the following ICT groups: High Level Strategy Group, Consumer Project Team as well as Project Team on Design for All and Assistive Technologies. It will work in co-operationship with the concerned bodies/committees.

Standards

Some standards are published in the EN 50090 series and Technical reports CENELEC R205-xxx.

The most  important is EN 50090-2-2 "HBES System Overview – General Technical Requirements" which is listed under the LVD and EMC Directive. It should also be used as a product family standard by the various product
committees.

Ongoing work

The following enumeration outlines the ongoing work within the active working groups:
TC 205 WG 2 has just delivered a new draft for a future prEN 50090-1.

TC 205 WG 3 has submitted EN 50090-2-2/prA1 to UAP.  It was published in January 2002.
The work on a possible draft for a second Amendment prA2 will start on 8th December 2000 and has been abandoned.

A completely revised 2nd draft with 7 clauses for a future prEN 50090-6-4 is being expected from WG 5.

WG 8 has also submitted a document prEN 50090-9-1 to 6 MP. The deadline for this procedure will be 28 February 2001.

PrENV 50090-5-4 prepared by WG 9 was rejected. A new proposal including the topic “Upper Layers” is expected from Konnex.

The draft for prEN 50090-9-2 prepared by WG 12 will be evaluated. A new 4th draft is also expected in this context as a Technical Specification (CLC/prTS).

The first draft for a prEN 50090-5-5, prepared by WG15, was rejected. A new proposal including the topic “Upper Layers” is expected from Konnex.

The first constitutional meeting of CLC/TC 205 WG 16 took place on 26th October 2000.

Co-ordination with other technical bodies

TC 205, being mainly concerned with system aspects, has established a number of internal and external liaisons and partnerships. There are co-operations with system committees [CLC/TC 215, CEN/TC 247], component committees [CLC/TC 46X, TC 72, TC 74, TC 79] and CENELEC Co-operating partners ANEC and Konnex, formerly EHBESA/Convergence. TC 205 follows the work of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC 25 related to home systems and cabling systems. Furthermore, in accordance with the consumer activities TC 205 is in contact with ETSI, ICTSB, CEN/ISSS and ANEC.