Smart Homes/Wireless Homes/Whatever they are called

Dara Robinson

Homes when everything is automated. Places where a simple phonecall will turn the oven on or the heating. Houses where you can turn the lights on and off at will from the beach in Australia. Things like that.
Just wondering what we can now get what Bill Gates has had for years.

Is there any companies that do this in Ireland?
What do you guys think about the whole setting your house up for this kind of new technology?
What information is out there?
How secure would they be? What security concerns would there be?
Anything else on the subject really

I just wanted to get people talking about it and see what kind of information and opinions people have about the subject.

WizZard

http://www.smarthomes.ie/

Dara Robinson

I think I was thinking more along the lines of being able to control certan features of your home remotley. Wether it be via the internet or a simple phone call and then typing in codes or something like that.

SmartHomes.ie seem to be more installing existing technology for you with no integration or any remote ability.

hobie

I know a guy who's wardrobe heaters come on for an hour every morning .... so does a heated towel rail .... and clothes dryer, and dishwasher, and washing machine, all switch on automatically during "night rate electricity" hours .... an immersion heater does the same ..... and of course an electric blanket switches on (well before I hit the sack ........ )

but no computer control .... just electronic timers .....

ps. and the heating system ....

Dara Robinson

*bump*

anyone know anything about this kind of technology?

An websites you have seen? dont have to be irish

pred racer

you can get call answering boards, originally designed for turning on/off your heating, but they will work with whatever you wire through them. very simple and no real capacity for different tasks just switch on switch off.
these are readily available for a while now so I would presume that more functional ones are out there too.

Dara Robinson

pred racer wrote:

you can get call answering boards, originally designed for turning on/off your heating, but they will work with whatever you wire through them. very simple and no real capacity for different tasks just switch on switch off.
these are readily available for a while now so I would presume that more functional ones are out there too.

What about the security aspect of that kind of set up. How secure would they be?

SouperComputer

Dara Robinson wrote:

What about the security aspect of that kind of set up. How secure would they be?

Ive come across those alright. you can get GSM activated ones. You control it with the touchtone from your mobile.

I think what you are looking for is called X10: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_%28industry_standard%29


Its a means of controlling devices in a home. It can be controlled thought a computer which of course can be controlled from the internet

7aken

your going to see more of this kind of thing over the next few years with the introduction of IPv6. it will allow billions of IP addresses meaning you could theoretically connect every item in your home to the internet.

early implcations would be intelligent devices such as a device with enough awareness to know that it was in need of a servicing, and would contact the repair company itself. Imagine emailing your home to run a program that would start any or every device in your house at your discretion.

as far as anyone offering servics around this idea, i know of a company in dublin (callidus telecom) who offer remote security monitoring. you can buy a wireless camera, power it and plug it into their network, they come with a nice web interface for monitoring, meaning you can log into the website from anywhere and watch.

Zith

Maybe something like http://www.intellihome.be

Nearly sure they have some module that connects to the phone line and lets you ring in to it to do stuff. I have a few bits and pieces from there. Handy for mood lighting or automated lights on/off.

Just saw this. Sounds what you might be after...although its a wee bit pricey. There could be other cheaper options on the site.

liamsquire

Check out:

http://www.simplyautomate.co.uk/
http://www.x10.co.uk/automation/index.html

This might help a little.

glynf

Dara Robinson wrote:

Homes when everything is automated. Places where a simple phonecall will turn the oven on or the heating. Houses where you can turn the lights on and off at will from the beach in Australia. Things like that.
Just wondering what we can now get what Bill Gates has had for years.

Is there any companies that do this in Ireland?
What do you guys think about the whole setting your house up for this kind of new technology?
What information is out there?
How secure would they be? What security concerns would there be?
Anything else on the subject really

I just wanted to get people talking about it and see what kind of information and opinions people have about the subject.

A lot of these home automation systems are a bit ropey tbh.
If you were serious and have €5-8k plus to spend, you could go the whole hog and install a proper building management system, similar to a commercial instalation.

You could have a control panel built with 1/2 bms network controllers and 1 comms/cx controller. Then you could use various input/outputs to control relays and contactors to switch on and off socket circuits, individual items like heating systems and valves, access control, etc.
Digital outputs for outside lighting and 4-20ma/ 0-10v outputs for dimmable lights etc.
When programmed up, the software front end can be accessed remotley via pcanywhere with Andover/Trend systems.
If you use the new cylon unitron controllers, they come with their own XML server built in, so you just plug it into a router and control it over the net from any browser.
Most BMS systems can be hooked up to a digidialler, but tbh I have only ever seen them used for alarms, etc. via text message

It's not a cheap option, a basic control panel for a house would cost €3k min, you would also have to rewire/spilt lighting and power circuits in your house and integrate them with your CP.
The good thing is you can have time schedules and control stratigies reprogrammed to suityourself, and you can expand with extra controllers etc. Most BMS software frontends are user friendly, but can be a bitch to program, and they are all different. From experience, Andovers continium is your best bet if you want to learn to prog. the system yourself as its explorer based and uses plain english prog. as opposed to cylon/trend which use their own block system.
So all in all a piece of piss:D
Cylon info:
http://www.cylon.com/en/UC32BrochureLowResolution-English.pdf

Tour Andover:
http://www.tac.com/

conzy

My home alarm system has X10 capability, If the alarm is triggered you can make it turn in every light in the house:D

jasgrif11

Sounds cool. What make of alarm is that?? How much to install??

Sparky

I have installed a lutron lighting systems and their best package is the Homeworks.
http://lutron.com/homeworks/overview.asp?s=&t=

Its more to do with lighting, but there is interfaces available that will switch anything on, via a relay box.
In practice we done this on music systems and electric curtains.
But as they are relays you can connect it to switch anything on.

It has a telephone interface for controling from anywhere in the world.