Sun Microsystems and UK engineering firm Invensys have teamed up to develop a networking technology that connects home devices to the web.

The residential gateway is in effect a command centre for the home that will connect PCs to devices such as freezers, central heating systems and TVs. Links to the internet will also be included.

The two companies will develop and market the so-called smart home infrastructure to accelerate the delivery of services to wired appliances in the home.

Invensys is developing ControlServer2, using Sun's Java Embedded Server2.0 (JES 2.0) software, that will allow access to all home systems, including electrical appliances, entertainment and security systems, from user interfaces throughout the home or via the web.

Users will, for example, be able to check how their laundry is doing or turn off the oven from a personal digital assistant, PC, TV or mobile phone.

Sun believes that its small footprint JES 2.0, available free to developers, will help drive the market.

"Sun is giving carriers and developers the tools they need to develop and deploy next-generation services for the networked home," said Curtis Sasaki, director of product marketing within Sun's consumer technologies unit.

Analysts believe that consumers will pay for residential gateways if the service was included in their phone or cable TV bills.