sMaRt Home 

Smart home means the linking of home technology and home appliances within a room or house as well as their central control and supervision via end devices. Indeed, the additional benefit of a smart home is the intelligent interaction of components and not just the mere control of the hardware and the use of the software itself.
 
The focus is on improvement of quality of housing and life, an efficient use of energy on the basis of networked and remote controllable appliances and installations as well as automated processes. Thus, appliances are partly also tagged, meaning that information on performance, manufacturer and product are stored and interlinked in a smart home.
 
Generally, smart homes have separate programming interfaces, which can also be operated via internet and extendable apps. The term „Smart Metering” is also often used, which basically includes the measuring of data and an intelligent regulation of energy consumption based on these data.
Apart from „Smart Home“, terms like "Intelligent Living", „eHome“, „Smart Living“ and further designations have been established, the meaning of which sometimes only differs in nuances. Moreover, manufacturers of smart home systems and components use further terms that are especially tailor-made for their individual marketing strategy.
 
Smart home offers opportunities for the early detection of damages, mitigation of accumulation risks, mitigation of objective risks and the prevention of minor damages. This way, early detection can already prevent the loss burden by the collection of data: for example, water detectors issue a warning in the event of moisture, fire or heat detectors minimise the factor "time" in the event of fire.
This reaches out to different target groups, technophiles and those with high safety needs as well as the ambient assisted living.

This dynamic market requires an interdisciplinary approach that meets the needs of intertwined coverage solutions. Technical issues are to be linked with new legal ground, particularly in aspects like

• home automation,
• smart metering,
• home appliances automation,
• networked entertainment electronics, 
• safety/peace of mind.

Therefore, an expert partner is needed, who is able to examine risks in terms of insurance contract and liability during all stages of a project. Market leader BLD offers comprehensive advice, especially on

• adaptation of contracts and wordings,
• assessment in terms of coverage,
• liability issues,
• data protection law,
• insurance supervision law issues.

BLD offers advice on product development and coverage law issues in terms of comprehensive insurance for the components lightning, water, electronics as well as all-risk-policies, contingency insurance, recourse, data protection and misuse.
 
As reliable partner of the insurance industry, BLD has been intensively working on many aspects of smart home from the beginning, thereby not only building up its own expertise but also establishing contacts with all kinds of specialised experts and other service providers.

Our law firm has well-experienced experts who are already dealing intensively with possible questions of this radical development. BLD's interdisciplinary approach guarantees solutions for different kinds of future problems.

Smart home is not limited to Germany. We therefore make use of our international alliance Legalign Global, of which BLD is a founding member.