What is home automation (HA)?
- Home Automation (or Domotics) is automation specific to the requirements of private residences. It applies techniques for the comfort, security, entertainment and communications needs of it is
- In simplest terms it is control and monitoring of devices and
- Lighting and appliance control
- Heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC)
- Energy/Resource management
- Security and access control (SAC)
- Doors and windows control and monitoring
- fire alarm (FA), fire, life, and safety (FLS)
- CO alarm
- Flood/Water Alarm
- Communications (voice and data)
- Entertainment control
- Information processing (things like resource management)
- Thunderstorm/Tornado/Tsunami/Earthquake/ Weather w
- It is all these things integrated into a single package and is quickly including things outside the
- Because of this HA is now becoming a misnomer
- perhaps a better name would be Smart Home Information Technology
What can you do with HA?
- With HA you control and monitor devices and information
- Sprinkler system (device)
- monitor your email (information)
- trigger things based on time, temperature, email or something else. (information)
- Security
- monitoring doors and windows
- fire, smoke, water & CO
- Entertainment
- music
- Streaming/Juke box
- Internet Radio
- Podcasting
- TV
- live
- recorded (VCR, DVR)
- Streaming video
- video casting (YouTube)
- Radio
- music
- Weather
- prediction
- recorded history
- current temperature, humidity, wind, barometric pressure, rain fall,
- phase of the moon
- tides
- Internet
- Thunderstorm/Tornado/Tsunami/Earthquake warning
Home Automation Introduction
- Home automation, It often starts with holiday lights
- You don’t need a computer for this
- A simple timer or a remote and some modules will do
HA Introduction
- Typical hardware you’ll start with:
- Lamps modules
- Computer interfaces
- A desktop control is not a bad idea also
- You expand to control other appliances typically lights
- Has a very high ‘Geek factor’
- Wild ideas begin to fill your head
- Reality sets in when gremlins strike
- SAF is very important
2011, the year of convergence
- Disruptive technologies
- Open Source/FOSS community
- Linux / GNU utilities
- X10 patents expiring
- Touchscreen technology (resistive/capacitive)
- ARM processors & cell phone usage
- Apple iPod/iPhone
- Android
- The App Store
Technology
- PLC – Power line carrier or communications- X10
- Insteon
- UPB
- Z-Wave & ZigBee (900 MHz/2.4GHz) both are wireless mesh
- Direct IO (Digital and Analog)
- Networked (IP, RS485, IButton, SPI, wireless)
- PC Interface (USB, serial, PCI board)
What can you do with it?
- Lights and appliances (direct, power line or wireless)
- TV, VCR, DVD, Tivo (IP network/IR)
- Monitor weather
- Temperature
- Thermostats
- Internet Information
Computer Interfaces
- Lots of different vendors, interface types and communication protocols
- Serial, USB, and IP
- Some are plug like some a USB stick like (Z-Wave for example)
Modules
- Lamp module
- Appliance module
- Digital/Analog I/O module (Sprinklers)
- Universal module (digital input)
- Wireless module
Wall Switches
- Some control loads
- Some only transmit a command
- some do both
- They do come in different colors and styles
KeypadLincs
- Some only send commands
- some can control one load (appliance control)
- the ones with a load can receive commands
KeypadLinc w/Dim
- Controls an electrical load
- Sends commands
- can send group
- on/off
- dim/bright
Wall Outlets
- Insteon OutletLinc
- on/off
- X10 Super Socket – I don’t recommend this product
Z-Wave Lock sets
Wireless Thermostats
Table top controllers
- Ugly but useful
- Smarthome has a lot of useful features
- Mini console – 4 buttons (useful for testing)
- Maxi Console – 16 buttons
Insteon Remote
Misterhouse (MH)
- MH is written entirely in
- It has a rather strange Object Oriented method of coding because MH writes some of it’s Perl code at startup
- Very flexible because it’s able to take advantage of the existing library of Perl Modules.
- Starting out is not terrible complex but some knowledge of Perl is
- Plenty of examples exist
- Mail lists are very friendly and
Plug Computer
- ARM (v5) processor
- 1G Hz
- 512M RAM
- 512M Flash/ SD slot
- No math coprocessor
- No fan
- 4 Watts of power
- Linux based
Misterhouse (MH)
- Control & Interface- X10
- Insteon
- Z-Wave
- UPB
- KNX/EIB
- Direct I/O
- 1-wire/IButton
- IP (TCP, UDP, HTTP, …)
Misterhouse (MH)
- IR
- transmit
- receive
- Wireless remotes (non X10/Insteon)
- Macros
- Triggers
- Tables (.mht ->.mhp)
Misterhouse (MH)
- Speech – TTS
- Listen – STT
- Weather
- News
- On this day, fortune
- Comics
- TV Guide
- Home Layout – Floor Plan
Misterhouse (MH)
- Grocery list
- Organizer/Calendar
- Stocks
- Home Security
- custom Perl code
- custom web pages
Web Interface & Demo
Floor plan
Custom Web page
MH .mht file
# Type Address Name Groups #
X10A, 01, Holiday_Lights, Holiday|O,
X10A, O1, xO1, Holiday|Test|O,
X10A, 01, Backup_Lights, Holiday|O
, X10A, O2, xO2, Holiday|Test|O,
X10A, O3, xO3, Holiday|Test|O,
X10A, O4, xO4, Holiday|Test|O,
X10A, O5, xO5, Holiday|Test|O,