Introducing a made-in-Malaysia gadget that enables you to switch on or off all your electrical and electronic items at home, even when you're thousands of miles away, just via sms.

It can be unnerving to leave your home for a long holiday these days. When you go for a vacation, topmost on your mind would be time to have fun, to unwind, relax and enjoy yourself. But what of the house that's left behind and the expensive hard-earned items in it? Are they really safe in the current climate where you hear of robbers running rampant, breaking into homes and taking every belonging they can grab their hands on, fleeing without a trace?

With the SMS Controlled Multi-Socket you can now breathe easier. Designed by two Electrical and Electronic students in Northumbria University students, Yeoh Huey Ling and Joshua Yam Weng Thai, together with KDU Industry Collaboration Centre and Engineering Department Head, Gerard Boey Kong Hoong, this nifty gadget is an innovation that controls each socket outlet in your home so that it can be turned on/off merely using SMS. Hence, electrical appliances, lights, etc. connected to your multi-socket at home can be turned on/off from anywhere in the world by just sending an sms.

And the message to potential robbers? "The family is home, let's look for an empty, hassle-free house to rob."

Apart from this, you can also feel safe if your house was dark and you wanted it to be bright when you arrived home but without leaving the lights on from day to dusk, wasting energy in the process. You only need to sms a few minutes before reaching home and voila, the lights are on when you return. What's more, the air conditioner could also be turned on to cool the house five minutes before you get home.

Competition catalyst

Yeoh, Yam and Boey created this very useful, practical gizmo when they decided to enter the recent MSC-Malaysia IHL (Institute of Higher Learning) Business Plan Competition. Needless to say, the trio emerged champions.

In line with the MSC Malaysia vision to transform Malaysia into a knowledge economy, MSC Malaysia in 2004 initiated this competition to tap into the innovative minds of Malaysia's new generation. Challenging their creativity and capacity in business, science and technology, the aim of the competition is to create a new genre of successful technology entrepreneurs or rather Technopreneurs.

Innovation Overview

What makes the SMS Controlled Multi-Socket even more appealing is that this product is cheap to manufacture and can be done by reusing parts of old handphones. In every handphone there is a chip known as the GSM Module which functions as a "tiny" modem that communicates with other handphones in the global GSM network. The team then sought to procure these chips and merge each chip into a multi-socket system where the chip is able to receive an SMS from your handphone, reads the SMS and then sends the corresponding signal to a control system which appropriately turns the target socket on or off.

Thumbs Up

When the team presented its plan to various key personnel and CEOs of MSC Status Companies in Cyberjaya where the competition was held, they were greeted with positive response. Apparently, all who were shown this gadget lauded it for its practicality, and as a green effort that could help people save money while protecting the home environment. They even mentioned that they would personally be willing to spend money to get the SMS Controlled Multi-Socket for themselves!