What Makes a Smart Home "Smart"
Where the smart house really differs from other houses is that a high tech communications network is installed in the home. This allows the various systems and devices in the home to communicate with each other.
The modern home contains a variety of systems, such as central heating, fire and security alarms, and devices, such as televisions and lights, that usually exist in total isolation from each other. In the smart house, these systems and devices are able to pass information and commands between them so that, for example, the security alarm can turn the lights on or off.
Smart Homes on the Web
- Smart Homes
- Smart Homes Automation Software and Services Guide
- Home Automation Software
- Smart Homes Home Automation Software Giode
- Household Robots
- Household Robots Guide
- smarthomes.org
- The institute is your partner in research, design and planning intelligent buildings.
- Howstuffworks "How Smart Homes Work"
- Smart homes connect all the devices and appliances in your home so they can talk to each other. See more about smart homes and their technology.
Smart Homes For Dummies by Danny Briere and Pat Hurley
Planning for the new home and remodeling options are covered. Practical tips tell you exactly what components are needed for various levels of automation, including what it will cost and how to stretch your budget.
The book also offers a glimpse of technology to come, how to prepare for it now and what is worth waiting for. Specific brand name products now on the market are analyzed with warnings about conflicting standards. For those who want to find out about specific topics, the book provides lists of web resources and print publications. This book will help you understand what is available in home automation and how to make it a reality in your own home
Home automation on Wikipedia
Home automation (also called domotics) is a field within building automation, specializing in the specific automation requirements of private homes and in the application of automation techniques for the comfort and security of its residents. Although many techniques used in building automation (such as light and climate control, control of doors and window shutters, security and surveillance systems, etc.) are also used in home automation, additional functions in home automation can include the control of multi-media home entertainment systems, automatic plant watering and pet feeding, automatic scenes for dinners and parties, and a more user-friendly control interface.
When home automation is installed during construction of a new home, usually control wires are added before the interior walls are installed. These control wires run to a controller, which will then control the environment.
Smart Homes on Amazon
Smart Home Hacks: Tips & Tools for Automating Your House (Hacks)
Amazon Price: $16.47 (as of 07/25/2008)
Home Theater For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
Amazon Price: $14.95 (as of 07/25/2008)
Smart Homes Ready to go Mass Market
Technologists have long promised the smart home, with automated lighting and intelligent climate control, whole-house audio-video and similar digital luxuries. Yet these high-tech habitats have mostly remained the province of either gadget-happy do-it-yourselfers or multimillion-dollar custom homes. But last week about 150 homebuilders from around the United States gathered at a posh resort in northern San Diego county - a hotbed of suburban construction-for a digital home conference. These were, moreover, mass-market home builders - the big firms that build hundreds or thousands of new homes each year with prices in the $250,000-$800,000 range.
Another important new feature is the Web-enabled house - the idea that wherever you are in the world, you can call up a Web page that lets you check on the status of your home, lock or unlock doors, and adjust lighting and temperature. Or your house can send you messages. Door sensors can tell you when (or if) the kids have arrived home; a motion sensor can tell you whether Grandma got out of bed this morning. One speaker claimed that the most commonly stolen item in homes is prescription drugs, often by workers such as cleaners or baby-sitters. "Your house can text you," he said, "that your medicine cabinet was opened at 10:45 this morning."
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Both Microsoft and Intel sent top executives to meet the home builders, Intel to push its Viiv brand of chips for home electronics and Microsoft to extol a vision of the smart home with the Media Center PC as the central control interface. Brands familiar to home builders - Leviton, Honeywell, Lutron - were also much in evidence, explaining how they will fit into this new digital world. The familiar names were important: building large residential developments is an assembly-line operation. Anything new or untested can throw off the schedule, so the mass-market builders are more comfortable with brands they know.
x10 for Home Automation
SmartHome
