What Is Home Automation?
Dim the lights with your remote control while sitting on your sofa. Have your porch lights turn on automatically at dark or when someone approaches. Be “told” that the garage door is still open when you get ready for bed. Have your house “page” you when events happen while you are away.
Automation can add convenience, security, cost savings and fun to your home. Home automation can be easily and inexpensively implemented without requiring that you be a master electrician. You too can have a “smart” home by utilizing the X10 protocol. X10 allows devices within a house to communicate with each other.
My home automation system is named IBHome. IBHome can turn lights on and off, page me when events happen within my house, automatically check my Internet email, “talk” to me when someone approaches my house, and perform other tasks.
What Is X10?
X10 is a powerline carrier protocol that allows compatible devices in the home to communicate with each other using the existing 110V wiring in the house. Using X10 it is possible to control lights, and virtually any other electrical device from anywhere in the house with no additional wiring.
X10 “Transmitter” devices send a coded low voltage signal that is superimposed over the 110V AC current. Any X10 “Receiver” device plugged into the household 110V power supply will see this signal. However, the “Receivers” will only respond when it sees a signal that has its “address”. Up to 256 different addresses are available. If you want more than one device to respond to the same signal, simply set them to the same addresses.
Since X10 devices are either plugged into existing wall sockets or are simple replacements for wired devices such as wall switches and sockets, it is easy to change or remove your automation setup. If you move to a new house, you can move your automation equipment with you easily.
X10 is inexpensive to implement. Many of the basic devices such as lamp modules, wall switches, and wall outlets cost less than $15 and can be added to your system one device at a time. This allows you to slowly build up your system over time without incurring a lerge expense.
How I Got Started
About 9 years ago I started reporting to a new manager where I work. He is heavily into home automation and has been for quite some time. The first few times he talked about it I didn’t pay much attention (figured I couldn’t afford the stuff). A co-worker started dabbling with simple remote control of lights. He told me a little more about how the particular items worked. I was amazed to find out that the devices were pretty cheap and didn’t require any special wiring.
It was time…I went to Radio Shack where there was a sale on simple control pads (transmitter) and plugin lamp modules (receivers). I bought one of each (total $16), went home, plugged a lamp into the lamp module and then into a nearby wall socket. I then went to another room and plugged in the control pad. Within two minutes, I had the ability to turn the lamp on/off from another room. I could also dim the lamp which was cool because the lamp itself only had one setting.
The next step was to automate the lamp to turn on and off at specified times of the day to appear as though someone was at home even if my family wasn’t. I purchased a computer programmable timer device ($35) and an in-wall light switch ($10) for my front porch light. I swapped out the standard wall switch in a couple of minutes, hooked up the timer interface to the computer, programmed the on/off times for the lights and setup the timer. Once programmed, the interface was disconnected from the computer to run standalone. Wow, automated lights.
You could say at this point I was pretty much hooked. Home Automation had become my hobby of choice!
