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Posts Tagged ‘Homes’

What is a smart home? A smart home is a home wired in such a way that all the electronic elements, such as your television, home security system, lights, etc. communicate with each other, and also with you. This concept used to only be found in books about the future. Lights that illuminate when you walk in the door, and then dim whenever you’re about to start a movie are common in many homes these days.

That’s because smart homes and smart wiring are becoming cheaper and more readily available. It’s said that Bill Gates once spent $100 Million dollars to build a smart home. This was many years ago. These days, the practice is finally available to the average residential home builder.

When it comes to automation and smart wiring, nearly every device in the home can be linked. This not only allows a person to control everything in the house from a single control box or remote control, but images from cameras or displays from other appliances can even be viewed on a cell phone or computer with an internet connection.

This allows a person to potentially control the HVAC units in the home, lighting, turn off the coffee maker or oven if the person forgot to turn it off before leaving the house and the person can even view a home security system.  Read more...

Integration is the process of connecting multiple devices that perform different functions so that they may control each other. With Integrated Devices, your Home Security system can talk to your Heating and Air system, or your Lighting system to control them based on certain events, such as arming or disarming the security system, times of day, or even alarms.

Automation is the process of controlling that equipment based on certain events or times of day. Automation and Integration go hand-in-hand to control your audio and video systems, security system, lighting, heating and air, pool controls, and much more.

So why Integrate your home? Imagine turning off all the lights in your home at night without walking to every room – you can do so right from the Master Bedroom keypad or touchpanel. Better yet, set a night “scene” that turns all the lights off except the hallway light, which gets set to 25%. Or, maybe you want to change the thermostats in your home to 67° when you leave the house for the day. With Integration you can do so, automatically. Imagine the energy savings.

With remote access to your home, you can also control these devices from any internet-connected PC. Log in to the house to view cameras remotely, or adjust the heating and air systems, or make sure the security system was armed before you left for the day.

In today’s world, with technology changing every day, keeping these systems connected and accessible is becoming more and more important, and less expensive.  Read more...

Creating a start of the art home can mean many different things to many people. However, The Joseph Rowntree Foundation did a study of the market potential for Smart Homes (state of the art homes) and came up with this helpful definition:-

“Smart Homes use electronic networking technology to integrate the various devices and appliances found in almost all homes, plus building environment systems more common in factories and offices, so that an entire home can be controlled centrally or remotely as a single machine. This technology offers the prospect of significant improvements in the living standards of older, sick and disabled people who, without automated domestic activities, might otherwise be totally reliant on home care.”

Their study shows that most people wanted a smart home to help with security and safety, access their home and items in it remotely and because it should save people time and money:-
 
Reference: Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Following this study, we cover these three elements within this section, as well as explaining one of the biggest topics for State of the Art Homes ‘multi room visual and audio entertainment’. We have also trawled the magazines, shows and the internet to try and find some tantalising ‘state of the art’ home products which for most will just be a dream, but are still great fun to investigate!  Read more...

Not only that every home owners, developers, investors requires home automation in compliance to the green global awareness for saving energy yet the vital subject of a company that will provide the right solution.

Since that automation is in its vast demand, it has grown under a big umbrella in the market emerging from many different companies.

Company’s schemes vary from their products to its pricing to the volume of requirements and needs.

Smarthome™ and HDL joined with their ingeniousity and as encouraged by the compassion to their client and experience with different products in related to the so called “ Smart Home “ over the years has evolved from a Supplier/Installer, then Integrators and now as Manufacturers of 2009 Mark of Excellence CEA Awardee for Best Green Product.

As a provider it is an obligation to furnish the best offer based not on competition but the objective of supporting needs of every consumer.

Uplifted, as of today Smart-HDL providing simple yet high end management monitoring and control of every household functions asserting the term “Home Automation “.

Facet of Smart Home such as Lighting and Dimming Control, Air Conditioning, Security, Drape Control, Door Entry Access and Home Entertainment does not only aims at each inhabitants but as well essential for those that offers the solution in which S-Bus and Z-Audio outstands from all.

Some of the key advantages of these aspects are:  Read more...

Smart homes technologies are and will remain a new idea for quite some time. Research is taking place to understand the potential advantages that smart homes can achieve, however So far most of the research has centered around graphical interface control, with very little thought going into alternate user interfaces, the most notable being the use of voice, which would prove to be a very convenient method of automating your home appliances.

When using a GUI the homeowner can usually only controls appliances from a display screen and is unable to automate the smart home technology elsewhere in the household. For a voice application Bluetooth is a good wireless standard to use because it can connect easily to a PC and as long as the user stays within 10-100 metres of the computer the smart home application can be controlled.

Voice control would be particularly advantageous to those with disabilities, for example, a visually impaired user would find it difficult to use a GUI and somebody with motor impairments would have a tough time using a keyboard and mouse, however deaf users would clearly struggle to use a speech-enabled system, so I would recommend including a GUI and voice control functionality.

There are a number of voice applications out there in industry, for instance, when you top up your mobile phone or telephone the bank you are taken through a series of steps and can select from a number of options that were programmed into an automated voice application. Typically these applications are designed using VoiceXML on a standard PC, which can then be accessed from any telephone via a pre-determined number.  Read more...