Home Automation
What’s the best reason to invest in a home control system? Simply put, it will make your home life remarkably easier. You can press one button and have the lights brighten, your favorite music come on and the temperature be set at the most comfortable level. A home control system can save you from juggling multiple remotes in the family room and from running around the house adjusting various buttons, dials and switches.
There are certainly sophisticated systems that can handle complicated tasks. But any good home control system, no matter how complicated, should be simple and intuitive for the entire family to operate.
Types of Home Control Systems
- Powerline Carrier Systems
- The least expensive type of home control system operates over the home’s existing wiring, or powerline carrier. These can range from X10-based lamp timers you can purchase for a few bucks at a retail store, to more sophisticated systems that cost a few thousand dollars and require installation by a trained professional.
- Wireless Systems
- Also available are wireless home control systems that utilize radio-frequency technology. They are often used to operate lights, sometimes in conjunction with a hardwired lighting control system.
- Hardwired Systems
- Wired, or “hardwired,” home control systems are the most reliable and expensive. These systems can operate over high-grade communications cable such as Category 5 or 5e, or their own proprietary “bus” cable. That’s why it is best to plan for them when a house is being constructed. These systems can cost well into five figures, depending on your needs and the size of your house.
- Hardwired systems can perform more tasks at one time and do them quickly and reliably, making them ideal for larger homes. They can also integrate more systems in the home, effectively tying together your indoor and outdoor lighting, audio and video equipment, security system, even your heating and cooling system into one control package that—if it’s installed properly—will be easy and intuitive for you to operate.
- IP Control
- As if all this weren’t enough to think about, now there’s a new breed of home control system that may make it easier than ever to control all the devices in the home. It’s called IP control, for “Internet Protocol.” IP systems use today’s computer technology, so your home becomes its own little Internet, with every device on it assigned an Internet address. This doesn’t mean that all your home control is on the Internet or that you have to “dial up” to an Internet server just to turn on the lights. It just means that your house operates like its own secure Internet via a Web server, or a computer network.
New Features and Benefits
Reliability—In a powerline-based system, look for one that can modulate the signal strength to overcome interference or the loss of the electrical signal as it passes over your home’s wiring. These systems are better equipped to overcome the things that can affect electrical signals within a home.
If you plan on having home control in more than one room, look for a multizone control system. These allow for different controls in various parts of the home.
Scenes & Macros—More extensive systems, from powerline-based to expensive hardwired systems, will also be capable of enacting housewide and local “scenes,” which may also be called “modes” or “macros.” These allow more than one event to take place in sequence, such as a goodnight scene that turns off all the lights and arms the security system, or a party scene that turns on lights and music for entertaining guests.
Astronomical Time Clock—Another great feature to look for is an astronomical clock that allows your home control system to work with a timer that automatically modifies its commands for daylight saving time. With a system containing an astronomical clock, you can set your outside lights to come on at dusk, even though the time the sun sets changes slightly with each passing day.
Communicates with Others—Home control systems should also have RS-232 interfaces in order to communicate with devices such as video projectors and lighting and security systems.
Means of Control—Home control systems are typically operated by either touchscreens or keypads. Touchscreens feature LCD screens and can be located on tabletops or on walls. The less expensive keypads are generally located on the wall near a room’s entrance. Each button on a keypad can be programmed to engage a scene or operate a single device in that room.
The most expensive home control systems generally use touchscreens that allow users to scroll through pages of controls, each one for a separate system such as lighting or audio/video. Some touchscreens can display video from a DVD, satellite receiver, or security camera. Some offer either one-way or two-way wireless radio-frequency (RF) control. More expensive two-way RF confirms that the signal has been received by the controller.
Remote Access—High-end systems offer more remote home control, either through cellular telephones, devices such as Pocket PCs, or the Internet. Some systems allow users to control devices in their homes by logging onto secure Web pages. And more systems today are integrating with the Internet to take advantage of the information there, such as weather reports to control lawn sprinklers, for example.
There’s our really simple look at home control. It’s becoming simpler to use and more complicated to explain every day!