Ruth Rininger

Professor Alma Scott

CINT 106

7 May 2013

The Smart Home

On your morning commute, have you ever thought, did I turn the hallway light off? What about the coffee maker? Did I set the security alarm? With a smart home, you wouldn’t worry about these things at all; you would just pull out your smart phone or your work computer, visit the Internet, and control your house. Have a hard day at work? When you walk in the door, you can have your favorite music playing and the lights dimmed. Worried about what your teenager is doing to your house while you’re away? Just watch him or her online from wherever you are. Do thoughts of the smart home bring to mind images of the Jetsons? The technology is not quite to that level, but give it time.

What is a smart house? According to Craven, “a smart house is a house that has a highly advanced automatic systems for lighting, temperature control, multi-media, security, window and door operations, and many other functions” (1). Practically anything in your home can be networked, including drapes and shades, gates, garage doors, door locks, doorbells, lights, dishwasher, refrigerator, heaters, alarm clocks, washer/dryer, microwave, coffeemaker, hot water system, air conditioners, central vacuum system, water controls, pool cover, fireplaces, toys, e-books, lawnmower, cars and other vehicles, piano, weather station, and furniture. Also able to be networked are audio and video devices, such as receivers, amplifiers, speakers, VCRs, CD players, DVD players, PVR players, TVs, WebTV devices, Apple TV devices, DSS dish, radios, remote controls, gaming consoles, cable TV devices, and TV videoconferencing devices. Similarly, security devices can be networked as well: baby monitors, video cameras, surveillance monitors, motion detectors, smoke detectors, occupancy sensors, pressure sensors, infrared sensors, intercoms, and voice enunciators. Finally, phones and computers round out the list: corded phones, cordless phones, 900-MHz phones, 2.4-GHz phones, 5.8-GHz phones, fax machines, answering machines, PDAs, screen phones, video phones, cell phones, PCs, Macs, laptops, modems, scanners, printers, and home servers.

Why network a home? A network allows you to access the Internet from anywhere in your home. A home network can stop household fighting over the one computer with a high-speed connection. Also, by have a wiring infrastructure in your home, you can set up anything from your TV set to your car to be able to tap in and make use of your network. You can remotely control your home; after your home network is connected to your other networks, you can do amazing things. The ability to control a device is only limited by the openness of the device. Stay out later than expected and want the house lights on when you arrive home? Pull out your cell phone, connect to your home’s network, and turn them on. Want to check on your children while at work? Just log onto your network from your office computer (or your cell phone) and check up on things. By having tasks programmed into task profiles, you can save time—so when you wake up in the morning, the shades can be open and the coffee pot and the morning news turned on. A smart home saves you money on electronics by allowing you to buying fewer devices; for example, instead of having a DVD player connected to every TV set, you can centralize this function and distribute the signal around the house. Also, you save money on communication costs; with a home network, for instance, both you and your spouse can connect to the Internet on separate computers while sharing one line and account. Additionally, the home network can save you money on home expenses. Some examples of this are turning down your thermostats while you’r e on vacation, cuddling under your blankets, or turning off lights automatically, which over time will save you money on your heating, cooling, and electric bills.

Next, we’ll have to look at smart home technology, which was first introduced in 1975 by a Scottish company called Pico Electronics. One kind of smart technology, X10, allows for communication among electronic devices using existing electrical wires of a home in order to control lights and appliances. All devices and appliances in the home are receivers, and keypads or remote controls are the transmitters. If you want to turn on a device or appliance, the transmitter issues a message in numerical code. This message sends an alert to the system that’s issuing a command, an identifying unit number for the appliance or device receiving the command, and a code that contains the actual command, such as “turn on” or “turn off.” All of this interaction should take place in seconds. However, X10 does have some drawbacks: electrical lines are not always reliable because of interference from powering other devices. An X10 system could read electronic interference as a command and react, or it might not receive a command at all.

The alternative to using power lines is using radio waves to communicate. This is similar to Wi-Fi and cell phone signals but without the same need for juice. The most popular radio networks for smart homes are ZigBee and Z-Wave, which are both mesh networks (which means that everything’s interconnected, so there is more than one way for a message to get to its destination). Z-Wave works by using an algorithm that determines the fastest route for a message. Each appliance is embedded with a code, and when the appliance is plugged into the network, the network recognizes the code, determines its placement, and adds it to the network. When a request comes through, the controller uses the algorithm to determine how the message should be sent. Because this can take up a lot of memory, Z-Wave has developed a pecking order among devices: some controllers initiate messages, and some can only carry and respond to messages. On the other hand, ZigBee transmitters zigzag, looking for best—and not necessarily the fastest—path to the receiver. ZigBee is based on standards set by the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for wireless personal networks. ZigBee also has fully functional devices, similar to Z-Wave.

Another option is Insteon: while using a wireless network gives you more flexibility for placing devices, you might still have interference; Insteon can change that by using both electrical wires and radio waves (dual mesh network). If your message can’t be sent one way, it will be sent the other way. Unlike the previously mentioned technologies, Insteon broadcasts messages to all devices until the required command is performed. The more devices you have setup on an Insteon network, the stronger the network will be.

X10, Insteon, ZigBee, and Z-wave technologies are worthless without devices to plug into them. Setting up a smart home can be expensive; depending on how many devices you set up, it can cost anywhere between $2,000 and $1 million—or if you’re Bill Gates, $100 million. When designing your smart home, you can have as much or as little automation as you want. For example, you can begin with lighting and add other devices later on. Setting up a smart home can be expensive depending on how many devices you set up it can cost anywhere between $2,000 and $1 million or if you’re Bill Gates $100 million. Smart home technology will change the role of the home from static structure to almost like caregivers.

Works Cited

Briere, Daniel D., and Patrick J. Hurley. Smart Homes for Dummies. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley, 2007. Print.

Craven, Jackie. “ What Is a Smart House?” About.com Architecture. N.p., 19 Apr. 1999. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.

Edmonds, Molly. “ How Smart Homes Work.” HowStuffWorks. N.p., 25 Mar. 2008. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.

Leslie, Jerold. “ 5 Smart-home Systems: From Cheap to Ultraluxe.” Real Estate. N.p., 23 Aug. 2011. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.