Smart Home

Download

.PPT.DOC

Smart Home

 Very few things can prepare you for the massive changes that are taking place due to the innovations offered by an interconnected world. The Internet and electronic commerce are changing the way we live, the way we work, and the way we play.

 

We’re so used to going to stores and buying things. To calling toll-free numbers so we can ask questions and order products. To going to school to learn. To going to the movies to watch the latest Harry Potter release. To going to the music store to buy the top-of-the-charts CDs. Now it can all come to us. We can buy things through our TV sets. We can ask questions and videoconference through our computers. We can attend classes through computer-based training. We can click our remote controls to get video-on-demand. We can download new CDs, live, over the Internet. It’s at our doorstep. The question is, “Can you let it in?” Without a home network, all this might stay outside, or in the TV room, or trapped in that attic office of yours. A home network opens the world to your entire household, and now more than ever is the time to plan. Your networked future home called Smart Home.

 

Smart homes 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 that were a fantasy are becoming a reality with tech-savvy builders chipping in to do the needful.

People seem to be getting smarter, creating and learning new technologies. But while they are, future houses are getting smarter, too. What really gets people to like a smart house is the new and improved technology. Appliances or robots might be controlled with remote controls instead of you always going to something and switching it on or off. Smart houses will also probably be more self-efficient in the future. "Smart" Home is the term commonly used to define a residence that uses a home controller to integrate the residences various home automation systems (putting devices together). Integration of the home systems allows them to communicate with one another through the home controller, thereby enabling single button and voice control of the various home systems simultaneously, in pre-programmed scenarios or operating modes.

  'Smart Homes' can be used to support older and disabled people, providing safe, secure and empowering environments. The 'Smart Home' can allow the user to control many features or automate the ones that might be required. The user can also be monitored by the 'Smart Home' system to ensure their safety, and alert people should the user be in difficulties. Improvements in technology and the massive growth of the Indian economy are leading to a technological life style that is perhaps best exemplified by smart homes.

  Intelligent homes ("smart" homes, automated homes, home networks etc.) are no longer a design concepts of the future. They are being built now, and they are having a direct impact on the lifestyles of people living in them. Intelligently designed and operated buildings yield dramatic increases in worker productivity and energy cost savings, and administrative savings within work environments as well as domestic ones. There may be even biosphere homes. You can control the environment in it. It's like a glass wall that keeps the climate in it warm, cool, or cold. So maybe you could swim in your pool even if it was winter outside, as long as the pool is in the biosphere. 

What’s in a Smart Home?

  A smart home is a harmonious home, a conglomeration of devices and capabilities working according to the Zen of Home Networking. At the beginning of  this chapter, we suggested that you make a list of all the things you might want to network. Following is our list. Notice that practically anything in your home can be, and ultimately will be, networked. That’s the whole point of whole-house networking:

  HVAC

Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) solutions include temperature and humidity control (climotics). This category also typically includes control of exhaust and ceiling fans.

  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 (shower, sink, and so on), pool cover, fireplaces, toys, e-books, lawnmower, cars and other vehicles, piano, weather station, furniture

  Lighting

Lighting control systems involves aspects related to controlling electric lights.

 

• Extinguished general of all the lights of the house
• Automation of switched off / ignition in every point of light
• Regulation of the illumination according to the level of ambient luminosity.

  

Natural lighting

Natural lighting control involves controlling window shades, LCD shades, draperies and awnings. Recent advances include use of RF technology to avoid wiring to switches and integration with third party home automation systems for centralized control.

 Audio

This category includes audio switching and distribution. Audio switching determines the selection of an audio source. Audio distribution allows an audio source to be heard in one or more rooms. This feature is often referred to as 'multi-zone' audio.

 Video

This includes video switching and distribution, allowing a video source to be viewed on multiple TVs. This feature is often referred to as 'multi-zone' video. 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, TV videoconferencing devices.

 Integration of the intercom to the telephone or of the video door entry system to the television set.

 Intercoms

An intercom system allows communication via a microphone and loud speaker between multiple rooms.

  Ubiquity in the external control as much internal, remote control from the Internet, PC, wireless controls (PDA with WiFi), electrical equipment. Transmission of alarms.

Intercommunications.

 Phones

Corded phones, cordless phones, 900-MHz phones, 2.4-GHz phones, 5.8-GHz phones, fax machine, answering machine, PDAs, screen phone, video phone, cell phones.

 Security

Baby monitor, video cameras, surveillance monitors, motion detectors, smoke detectors, occupancy sensors, pressure sensors, infrared sensors, intercoms, voice enunciators.

 Control and integration of security systems

This category also includes control and distribution of security cameras

 

• Detection of possible intrusion
• sensors of detection of movement
• sensors of magnetic contact of door/window
• sensors of glass breaking
• Simulation of presence.
• Detection of fire, gas leaks, water leaks (see fire alarm and gas alarm)
• Medical alert. Teleassistance.
• Precise and safe closing of blinds.

 Computers

PCs, Macs, laptops, modems, scanners, printers, home Servers .

 Robotics

Control of home robots, using if necessary domotic electric beacon. Home robot communication (i.e. using WiFi) with the domotic network and other home robots.

 Other systems

Using special hardware, almost any device can be monitored and controlled automatically or remotely including:

 

• Coffee pot
• Garage door(s)
• Pet feeding and watering
• Plant watering
• Pool pump(s) and heater, Hot tub and Spa
• Sump Pump (need info and links)

  The key is getting information to and from each of these devices. That takes a network. Your home network is actually a collection of networks. Communications in and among different devices travel over various network layers, such as your home-telephone network, your computing network, your security network, your electrical communications network (yes, you can talk over your electrical lines, believe it or not), and so on. These collectively are what we call your home network, and you mix, match, and jump among these network layers as you communicate throughout your household.