This paper provides an overview of the main manufacturing technologies of displays, focusing on those with low and ultra-low levels of power consumption, which make them suitable for current societal needs. Considering the typified value obtained from the manufacturer’s specifications, four technologies—Liquid Crystal Displays, electronic paper, Organic Light-Emitting Display and Electroluminescent Displays—were selected in a first iteration. For each of them, several features, including size and brightness, were assessed in order to ascertain possible proportional relationships with the rate of consumption. To normalize the comparison between different display types, relative units such as the surface power density and the display frontal intensity efficiency were proposed. Organic light-emitting display had the best results in terms of power density for small display sizes. For larger sizes, it performs less satisfactorily than Liquid Crystal Displays in terms of energy efficiency.

In this paper, it is addressed the problem of integrating service robots in the smart home. To this end, several middleware initiatives are analysed, paying special attention to Universal Plug and Play (UPnP). In addition, the iRobot service robot Roomba is deeply studied and an application to integrate it in the smart home via UPnP is presented.