Getting Connected: Controlling the Home

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Getting Connected: Controlling the Home
Imagine a home where turning off a forgotten bedroom light doesn't mean running back up the stairs. Today, controls for a home's main systems, such as lighting, heating and cooling, and home entertainment can be consolidated into a single device or accessed individually.

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Light switches are so old fashioned. While every home has numerous electrical, mechanical, communication, and entertainment systems, the connected home brings all of them together. By wiring the controls of each system to one point, commonly known as a control system overlay, the systems can be integrated and made interoperable. The control system overlay package provides a single, unified interface for the control of the individual element of the home. While that may be a mouthful, what it means is that the same device used to control the home's interior lighting can also be used to adjust the heat in the living room, or turn off the stereo and turn on the TV.

Controlling the Home - In the well-connected home, one device can control almost everything in the house. Lighting, heating, cooling, and entertainment systems are accessed from a single wireless device.

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Cisco's Aironet wireless access point and wireless networking cards allow freedom to move throughout a home while staying connected to the Internet.

Lighting, HVAC, and home entertainment are the most common systems to be integrated in the automated home. While each part of the system can operate independently with its native controls (light switches, wall thermostats, stereo knobs and dials, and the old TV remote), the overlay control package integrates all of the individual systems into one "super system" that has a single control point. The homeowner can control all the systems through wireless devices, such as a Web tablet, a radio frequency (RF) controller, or a personal computer. By connecting the main control system (and the rest of the home) to the Internet (and if available a home's structured wiring network), the homeowner can also access and manipulate the home's controls from afar. Think of it as a home's Home page. By connecting to the Internet and browsing a unique menu of options for the house through a firewall- and password-protected Web page, you can monitor and control a home from the office, the neighbor's house, or from a hotel room across the country.

Wireless Home Networking - Wireless networks allow you to roam freely—and stay connected. No longer tethered to the desktop (or your desk!), work and Web surfing happen when and where you choose.

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Wireless Access
Wireless networking solutions bring the freedom of movement to the connected home. A wireless Web-enabled device can be put into service as a home's remote control. To make wireless Internet connections work, two pieces of equipment are required. First, a wireless networking device, or access point, is needed to transmit and receive information to and from the home's main control system and an Internet connection. -Second, each device that interfaces with the wireless access point must have a wireless networking card. The networking card is like an antenna for the computers that send and receive data from the access point. Each computer most have its own network card, although a single access point can serve a home's worth of computers. At the store, look for devices that use the industry-standard 802.11b protocol.

Wireless networking devices can be connected not only to the Internet but also to the home's control system. Any wireless-enabled device within the home can communicate with the central control system through the wireless access point, which in turn allows the device (examples include Web tablets, laptop or desktop computers, and wireless PDAs) to access the home's controls. Wireless technologies allow the homeowner to use these devices anywhere within the home and up to a certain distance outside as well (usually about 300-feet from the wireless transmitter). Wireless connectivity opens up a host of creature comforts: Adjust downstairs lighting and heating while sitting in bed using a wireless Web tablet, view online product instructions while working on a project in the basement, or read and send email while sitting on the porch or by the pool.

Satellite Internet Service - Internet Home Alliance's Tim Woods takes a close look at how a Hughes Network Systems' DIRECWAY satellite brings both high-speed Internet access and DirecTV service to a home with a structured wiring network from Home Director.

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Web Tablet
Designed to be portable, hand-held, and capable of doing almost anything that a PC or laptop computer can do, Web tablets can be used by homeowners as a mobile access point to control the home. Web-based controls in the home can be accessed through the Web tablet using a standard Web browser. Web tablets are less bulky than laptops and easily used while moving through the home. The Web tablet, like any other wireless device in the home, connects to both the Internet and the home's control system through a wireless access point.

Portable Control - Honeywell's WebPAD wireless Web tablet provides portable access to a home's control system, as well as standard Web surfing and email functions.

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Heating, Ventilation, Cooling and Lighting Controls
The connected home does not rely solely on wireless devices to control its various systems. The light switches still work, and thermostats (wherever they are located) can still be used to change the temperature. The difference is that changes made in one location are recorded throughout the system. A light turned on in an upstairs bedroom registers as moving from off to on with the central control system through a sensor located in the switch. The same light can later be turned off (or dimmed) from elsewhere in the home using a different control point. Result? No more running around to various thermostats and light switches before leaving the home or going to bed. The home's individual systems are accessible and manageable in a convenient and easy-to-use manner. For an added measure of convenience, HVAC controls for example, can even be setup for access, monitoring, and adjustment by standard or cellular telephones.

Call-In Access - A Honeywell thermostat, in combination with the company's Telephone Access Module (installed in the basement or a utility closet), allows homeowners to dial into a home's HVAC system via telephone and make adjustments remotely.

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