Ever dream about managing appliances, home entertainment systems, electronics, air-conditioning and security from one universal remote control?

Well, Nokia has made that dream into a reality with the launch of the Nokia Home Control Center, which turns a consumer's mobile phone into a universal remote that can control almost every aspect of life at home.

The Nokia Home Control Center works on an open Linux-based platform, letting home owners build technology-neutral smart homes that can be controlled with a mobile phone, using a unified user interface.

Nokia Home Control Center supports the most common smart home technologies, including Z-Wave as well as enabling the incorporation for proprietary technologies.

Therefore, it will allow third parties to develop their own services and expand the system to support new services and smart home technologies.

The implementation of the Nokia Home Control Center is centered on the mobile phone becoming a gateway to GSM, GRPS, Wi-Fi and Z-Wave wireless connectivity.

The Nokia Home Control Center will be part of Nokia's home offering. The technology will be demonstrated at the Nokia World event in Barcelona, Spain Dec. 2-3 and is expected to become commercially available by the end of 2009.

The platform is opening a new era for networked home services.

Nokia's Home Control Center will be the basis for next-generation security, smart home solutions and household energy management systems.

The technology will let consumers monitor and control their electricity usage, switch devices on and off, and monitor temperature, camera, and motion from their mobile devices.

In the future, entire systems within the home can be connected to the Nokia platform, including security, heating and ventilation systems.

Last week, Nokia announced a partnership with one of Europe's biggest energy companies, RWE.

The partnership aims at developing technology for managing energy consumption and CO2 footage at home.

The synergy is a combination of RWE's energy competence with Nokia's technological know-how.

Nokia and RWE will focus on home-heating management.

The product consists of a central control unit together with remote-controlled thermostats for the actual radiator. The user interface will be the PC and the mobile phone.

In addition, a separate display will be available.

RWE is also planning special offers combining these devices with new energy supply contracts.

In a second step, Nokia and RWE are planning additional services in connection with smart meters beyond 2009. These services will provide consumers with real-time information about their energy consumption and allow them to control their energy bill remotely.