The concept of the ‘Smart House’ is nothing new, and the reality for some years now has been that if you throw enough at an electrician, he will install some flavour of a domesticated commercial system.

For somewhere north of $5,000 you have been able to get a new house wired and installed with a Clipsal C-Bus system, but dont expect it to do very much except have very funky looking switched with LED’s on them and diide the house into a few zones that you can control the lights from other areas.

But is this enough for today?

There are residential domestic appliances these days that allow the home user to have some control over their house, however it is a bit ad-hoc.

X-10 have been selling plug in modules for some time, and in the last few years have released a bus type fitting, but they do seem very ‘enthusiest’.

You only need to take a trip to the nearest large chain hardware store and visit the electrical dept to be able to find a shef full of control devices.

This is great as it is bringing basic control of a few devices to the general public in a very easy to use form factor – namely double adapter style controllers for plug in devices and a computer controlled interface. There is even now a double adapter light bulb plug in device so that you can control bayonet fitting lights too.

This is a good start, and there would be numerous households around Australia that operate on this system, however it ends up being rather expensive and pretty limited. Not to mention unsightly. I want to see plug adapters all over the place!

Cost is by far and away the biggest limiting factor. Using plug adapters it is going to cost you in the region of $30 – $50 per point to install. I am not too sure as to the viability of the plug adapters though, what do you want to control that plugs into a power point?

We arent Americans, we dont all have coffee makers that we have to have to live that we want to make us a piping hot pot of filter coffee to be ready as we walk intot he kitchen in the morning. ( If we did we would buy one with a timer )

I am considerring the options now and the electrician installed full bells and whistles system seems to be winning in my mind currently.

If I build a new house, I want it to be at least a little future proofed.

A C-Bus system uses standard cat5 cable and can be wired in a star or series topology. Data and power to each device is sent over this cat5 link. (36v is what it runs off, we are not talking 220v power here)

So you have to have an addressable device at a switch (in the switch) and an addressable  device at the light socket or power point. These devices have unique addresses and are paired for specific control. ie you can pair a light switch to a light, or a group of lights.

So what I hear you say? Where are the smarts in that?

The smarts come when you combine these devices with sensors. An example of this is that you can get movement and light sensors. Program your halway to turn the light off if it has been 3 minutes since someone has been in it or, program your kitchen lights to turn on if it is between 4am and when it is daylight when you leave your bedroom heading towards the kitchen.

The other benefit is that you can do little things that while not all that important, incrementally make your life better. Such an example of this is in the scenareo above with walking to the kitchen at 4am for a drink. While it is nice to not have to turn the lights on manually, it is even better if the lights only come up to 20% brightness. It is dark after all and you have been asleep, so stepping into a brilliantly lit kitchen is going to make you wince.

Make the lights rampup. I have walked to the kitchen, you have turned the lights on for me to 20%, but I have been here 30 seconds, take them up to 75% over 1 minute please. If i leave the kitchen and then go the hall, I am going back to bed, so after 1 minute ramp the lights back down to off over 30 seconds, just in case I am loiterring.

OK, so I have convinced myself that I like an automation system for lighting, but what else can I do?

I, like many people are now installing in some form or another, have a home theater. I dont mean home theater in the marketing sense where a tv hooked up to a stereo classifies as one, I mean home theater as in I have a dedicated room that has a screen and projector and the whole 9 yards.

My theater room is set up so that I hit one button and the projector turns on, the stereo turns on, the screen drops down and everything is set to the appropriate inputs. Nice very nice. The things that it doesnt do are the ones that I wont the most though.

If it is daytime, I want the blinds closed and the downlights behind the couches turned onto 10%.

If it is nighttime I am not fussed about the blinds, but i still want the downlights to 10%.

That leads e to one of the better applications of home automation.

I want the curtains and blinds and air conditioning controlled too.

If it is daytime and the tempurature in the room is above 25 degrees close the curtains to help keep the heat out and if someone is home and using that room, give it a littel air conditioning please.

if you have the house hooked up to a computer, you then give yourself unlimited possibilities for external control.

Have a weather station hooked up to the computer and have the computer email you if the house gets above 25 degrees. In the email give me a link to be able to turn on the air conditioner or shut the blinds. How good would it be to be out and about and have your house warn you that there is a storm coming, the wind is higher than your pre-set tollerance and you didnt put the awenings up. “would you like me to retract the awenings?”

It is getting hot in the house, the house has closed the blinds, but you dont want it controlling the air conditioning while no one is home, but you are 30 mins away. Just email the house and turn the cooling on so that it is hospitable when you get home.

I am going to buid a wine cellar. I want the house to try as best it can to maintain an even cool temperature. If it cant, I want it to tell me so that I can make other arrangements. ( such as turn on the heating or cooling )

Of couse the amount of control that you want to have of your house is limited only by your imagination, but the tools are there, just depending on what you spend.

Yeah I am doing hte mental arrithmatic on how much this will cost me, I am going to go call my mortgage broker, see if I can get more money….