Toyota and Panasonic co-operate on cloud-based in-car system to monitor and operate home appliances

June 9, 2014: We’ve all had those “oh-no” moments after leaving home: the washing machine not switched on, the TV not set to record tonight’s movie, the air conditioning not primed to cool the house down ready for your return. Toyota and Panasonic are working together on a new cloud-based telematics service that will make life easier and less stressful by letting people keep tabs on and operate their home appliances from the wheel of their car.

The technology is being presented by Toyota at the Smart Community Japan 2014 exhibition in Tokyo this month, prior to the new service being launched on the market as soon as the second half of this year.

The concept is all part of Toyota’s on-going work to make mobility smarter, more convenient and more comfortable, and to increase the value cars can add to people’s lives. It makes use of the existing cloud-based Toyota Smart Center, which already links people, cars and homes around the world, and the Panasonic home appliance control application.

The Panasonic Corporation is pioneer in smart home appliances, such as televisions, video equipment and air conditioners, supporting its mission for A Better Life, A Better World for all its customers. The company is working to create new smart homes that are environmentally efficient and network-connected to support modern lifestyles.

The two companies agreed a year ago to co-develop services for next-generation telematics services that link cars to home appliances. Since then they have succeeded in developing an interface to link their respective cloud services, and laid the groundwork for new services, including applications for in-car operation and status-checking of home appliances. For example, an application linked to a vehicle’s GPS data can remind the user to turn off the air conditioning before leaving home, and enable them to turn it on remotely before returning.

In the future, Toyota and Panasonic will bring their individual strengths to joint development of smarter mobility, using cloud-based services to link people, cars, homes and communities.