One issue that can cause issues in a 2-story home is the ability to send and receive RF signals across the home, and possibly even the entire yard. Typical RF reception range can be as low as 20 feet, and if you have complete line of sight max is about 100 feet. In my house, which is older construction so thicker walls, I was not able to receive RF signals from one end of the hosue to the other (My RF receiver is a W80032RF serial receiver) so I needed to figure out some way to increase my reception range. This is where the Internet comes in!
I searched around for a while, and then found a great DIY thread on a home automation forum that I frequent, Cocoontech.com, that talked and described in great detail how to build an antenna out of easily obtainable parts from Radio Shack and the local hardware store (See link at bottom of page for the How-To). Once I went through and built the antenna, I hooked it up to my W800 and re tested the range. At this point I was able to use a simple X-10 RF device (Palm Pad) from my driveway at the other end of the yard (over 100 feet of obstructed distance) and it worked fine. Awesome! Super geek project complete. Now on to things to use this for...stay tuned and I will detail several examples in my next post.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
X-10 RF technology to control Z-Wave and UPB switches?
After deciding on Z-Wave technology I discovered one downside. That is that some of the items that I would like to place around my home (Motion sensors, contact sensors, temperature and humidity sensors) are much more expensive than some of the non Z-Wave variations of those products. What would be really cool would be if you could use some of the cheaper technologies for some of those areas to control your Z-wave systems...oh wait! You can!
Using Homeseer as my control solution gave me the flexibility to do exactly what was described above. I have my Z-Wave lighting setup around the house already. Then by using an RF receiver like the W800 or the RFXCom in conjunction with an easy to setup plugin for Homeseer I can utilize cheap X-10 devices like the MS16A motion sensor or the DS10 contact sensor to trigger events or even control Z-wave or UPB devices directly.
Here is the setup I am using: I have a W800RF32 connected to my Homeseer PC through a serial port. I have an external antenna installed in my attic (I wanted larger range so thanks to the guys at cocoontech.com I was able to build my own antenna for about 10 bucks). I then ordered several MS16's (5 for 20 bucks) and DS10's (6 for 20 bucks) and put them around the house. I then setup the AC-RF2 (RF receiver plugin for Homeseer) and used the configurations in that plugin to accept the X-10 signals being received and translate those into Z-Wave and UPB signals to send to the end devices I want to control. In this instance again, Homeseer is kind of the glue holding this all together. The key to any successful home automation is your choice in control system.
Next post will be detailing some uses of the motion sensors and contact sensors, as they have almost limitless uses and you can mod them up some to play MacGuyver. Geekiness at its finest folks!
Using Homeseer as my control solution gave me the flexibility to do exactly what was described above. I have my Z-Wave lighting setup around the house already. Then by using an RF receiver like the W800 or the RFXCom in conjunction with an easy to setup plugin for Homeseer I can utilize cheap X-10 devices like the MS16A motion sensor or the DS10 contact sensor to trigger events or even control Z-wave or UPB devices directly.
Here is the setup I am using: I have a W800RF32 connected to my Homeseer PC through a serial port. I have an external antenna installed in my attic (I wanted larger range so thanks to the guys at cocoontech.com I was able to build my own antenna for about 10 bucks). I then ordered several MS16's (5 for 20 bucks) and DS10's (6 for 20 bucks) and put them around the house. I then setup the AC-RF2 (RF receiver plugin for Homeseer) and used the configurations in that plugin to accept the X-10 signals being received and translate those into Z-Wave and UPB signals to send to the end devices I want to control. In this instance again, Homeseer is kind of the glue holding this all together. The key to any successful home automation is your choice in control system.
Next post will be detailing some uses of the motion sensors and contact sensors, as they have almost limitless uses and you can mod them up some to play MacGuyver. Geekiness at its finest folks!
Saturday, February 12, 2011
The Z-Wave Issues...
So several weeks ago I put my first Z-Wave modules in, setup my Homeseer software and began my lighting automation. This all went very well at first, a few strange things were happening, but it was very new so I was willing to work with it a bit. After a couple of weeks I started wondering if I had chosen the right technology. I had a 15 node network and I was having a hard time communicating with almost half of the nodes. When Homeseer was running its nightly optimizations (This is a process where the controlling software instructs each node in the Z-Wave network to re discover all of its neighbors in order to strengthen the network and make sure everything in communicating properly) I was only seeing success on 60% of my nodes some nights and 90% on others. Very random, then one afternoon while I was forum ranting about this someone asked if I had any baby monitors running as they can sometimes cause some issues. Click, the light went on. I ran in my son's room, turned off his monitor and ran 4 optimizations in a row. 100% success and each device in the network was seeing at least 80% of the others. I turned the monitor on and played with the Channel on it a bit and got it to where every node in the house communicated properly except the node directly under his monitor.
The moral of this story? Sometimes little stupid things can cause more headaches than the major ones. Anyone who says don't sweat the small stuff has never been bitten by the small stuff!
The moral of this story? Sometimes little stupid things can cause more headaches than the major ones. Anyone who says don't sweat the small stuff has never been bitten by the small stuff!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Things to automate
So I have been making a list of things that I want to automate. I want to be able to push a button and have my media room set itself up for movie watching, dim the lights, wait a couple of minutes for people to get settled then take the lights all the way down. Much like a theater. I want rooms that are not occupied to shut off their lights after a while of no one being in them. I want the house to respond to my alarm system by performing actions like shutting off all the lights and fans if it is day time and we arm the alarm to away mode. I want to be notified when people come and go.
The real adventure is getting all of this setup, working and keeping the family happy with it. I will let you all know how that goes...feel free to post ideas you have of what else you would automate or like to see info on how to automate and I will try it out!
The real adventure is getting all of this setup, working and keeping the family happy with it. I will let you all know how that goes...feel free to post ideas you have of what else you would automate or like to see info on how to automate and I will try it out!
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Decision process and initial setup
Well, I thought I would put up a post detailing a little about why I wanted to get into Home Automation, what I was trying to achieve and how I went about deciding on technologies and products.
Well the easy answer to the question of why is that Home Automation is freaking cool and I am a huge geek. Seriously, who doesn't want their house to react to them and do things for them? Wouldn't it be nice if your house just knew when you got up in the morning, turned on your lights, made you breakfast and then turned everything back off and cleaned up after you? Hell yes it would! How do you get there? Well you have to find the technology and put it to use.
I started reading about Home Automation back in 1999/2000 and actually implemented a small X-10 setup in my old apartment that did not work out so well, but that is another story for another day. After that though I took an extended break from Home Automation, mainly because I was not in a position to implement any of it. When I moved into my current home last summer we decided that we are going to (Barring anything unforeseen of course) stay here long term. This means that I get to automate this house :-) . Well, after almost 10 years of not really spending any time researching I was woefully out of date on the Home Automation technologies so I started reading everything I could find. Avsforums.com, cocoontech.com, remotecentral.com as well as browsing blogs and Home Automation online stores. While doing this initial research I was mainly looking for 3 things. What would I like to actually automate, what were the current and upcoming technologies, and most importantly would my family enjoy the results (Would my family like or hate them is pretty much the determining factor for how far I could take this project)?
The first thing I tried to do was decide what I actually wanted to automate and how that would provide a benefit to the members of the household. The first, and probably easiest, thing I looked at was automating the lighting in the house. Setting up events like turning on lamps at Sunset, turning them off at bedtime and turning off any others at Sunrise. Turning on porch lights and backyard lights at night and off in the morning. Closet lights that come on when you enter and off when you leave the closet. You get the idea. There are many other areas of home automation, but this was a good starting point.
Next step was to decide how I was going to automate the lights. I knew that I did not want to use X-10, due to the experience I had with it previously and also due to the fact that the technology had not changed much in the past 10 years. After doing some reading I decided that my real decision was between Z-Wave (A wireless protocol that creates a mesh network between the devices) and UPB (A powerline technology based loosely off of X-10 but much more reliable and efficient). After doing a lot of reading, I decided on Z-wave not because I thought it was significantly better than UPB, but because of the broad range of products and support available using the technology. UPB is more or less limited to light switches and similar devices, whereas Z-wave has many products like motion sensors, door locks, light switches and much more. Additionally Z-wave has several big name companies supporting it (Schlage, Kwikset, Leviton, Cooper, to name a few).
Once I had decided on Z-Wave, I had to decide how to control it. There are multiple options here, but since I planned to automate more than just the lights, and do it myself, my choices were quickly narrowed down to hardware control systems (Hard wired alarm and automation panels like the HAI OmnoPro or Elk M1) or software solutions (Software running on a PC and controlling the devices through serial or USB interfaces like Homeseer, Misterhouse, Elve and others). After spending a lot of time reading forums, websites and talking to people in the Home Automation industry I decided to go the software route, and around Thanksgiving of this past year I purchased Homeseer as my control system. This will eventually become the brains of my house (As my family always tells me I am certainly not the brains around here).
So now I had some of my technologies picked out and my control software purchased, but nothing to automate. I was a dog without a bone. I built a machine, installed Homeseer, got it all setup and then it just sat there. Around Christmas time I finally ordered my first batch of automation gear so that I could get a couple of small things setup to see how the family was going to react. I purchased 3 in wall switches (A couple of relays and a dimmer) and several plug in modules for controlling lamps and such. I talked it over with the family and then installed the first 2 switches in my office on my lights and ceiling fan and the other dimmer in our dining room. I also put some lamp modules around the house and got them integrated into the network. Now it was time to setup some events and see how much everyone hates it...:-)
My wife is not a fan of overhead lighting, she likes lamps. As such each evening she would go around the house and turn on about 5 lamps. 3 of these would remain on all night so that if we had to get up in the middle of the night, we can see as we wander around to take care of children that refuse to sleep, dogs that are barking at shadows or just random annoying things that can only go wrong at night. So I used Homeseer to automate the process of turning these lamps on and off when my wife normally would. Each evening a few minutes before Sunset all 5 lamps turn on. Then at 10 PM two of them turn off and the others are turned off a few minutes after Sunrise in the morning. Shockingly, this was a big hit. It works great, and everyone loves the fact that the lights come on at just the right time in the evening, and then proceed to just take care of themselves.
Riding high on this initial success I have automated several more things around the house, setup several different technologies and am working on touchpad control and integration of the multiple sub systems and technologies. This is a FUN project, and each time I set something up and the family enjoys the result I like it even more.
Well the easy answer to the question of why is that Home Automation is freaking cool and I am a huge geek. Seriously, who doesn't want their house to react to them and do things for them? Wouldn't it be nice if your house just knew when you got up in the morning, turned on your lights, made you breakfast and then turned everything back off and cleaned up after you? Hell yes it would! How do you get there? Well you have to find the technology and put it to use.
I started reading about Home Automation back in 1999/2000 and actually implemented a small X-10 setup in my old apartment that did not work out so well, but that is another story for another day. After that though I took an extended break from Home Automation, mainly because I was not in a position to implement any of it. When I moved into my current home last summer we decided that we are going to (Barring anything unforeseen of course) stay here long term. This means that I get to automate this house :-) . Well, after almost 10 years of not really spending any time researching I was woefully out of date on the Home Automation technologies so I started reading everything I could find. Avsforums.com, cocoontech.com, remotecentral.com as well as browsing blogs and Home Automation online stores. While doing this initial research I was mainly looking for 3 things. What would I like to actually automate, what were the current and upcoming technologies, and most importantly would my family enjoy the results (Would my family like or hate them is pretty much the determining factor for how far I could take this project)?
The first thing I tried to do was decide what I actually wanted to automate and how that would provide a benefit to the members of the household. The first, and probably easiest, thing I looked at was automating the lighting in the house. Setting up events like turning on lamps at Sunset, turning them off at bedtime and turning off any others at Sunrise. Turning on porch lights and backyard lights at night and off in the morning. Closet lights that come on when you enter and off when you leave the closet. You get the idea. There are many other areas of home automation, but this was a good starting point.
Next step was to decide how I was going to automate the lights. I knew that I did not want to use X-10, due to the experience I had with it previously and also due to the fact that the technology had not changed much in the past 10 years. After doing some reading I decided that my real decision was between Z-Wave (A wireless protocol that creates a mesh network between the devices) and UPB (A powerline technology based loosely off of X-10 but much more reliable and efficient). After doing a lot of reading, I decided on Z-wave not because I thought it was significantly better than UPB, but because of the broad range of products and support available using the technology. UPB is more or less limited to light switches and similar devices, whereas Z-wave has many products like motion sensors, door locks, light switches and much more. Additionally Z-wave has several big name companies supporting it (Schlage, Kwikset, Leviton, Cooper, to name a few).
Once I had decided on Z-Wave, I had to decide how to control it. There are multiple options here, but since I planned to automate more than just the lights, and do it myself, my choices were quickly narrowed down to hardware control systems (Hard wired alarm and automation panels like the HAI OmnoPro or Elk M1) or software solutions (Software running on a PC and controlling the devices through serial or USB interfaces like Homeseer, Misterhouse, Elve and others). After spending a lot of time reading forums, websites and talking to people in the Home Automation industry I decided to go the software route, and around Thanksgiving of this past year I purchased Homeseer as my control system. This will eventually become the brains of my house (As my family always tells me I am certainly not the brains around here).
So now I had some of my technologies picked out and my control software purchased, but nothing to automate. I was a dog without a bone. I built a machine, installed Homeseer, got it all setup and then it just sat there. Around Christmas time I finally ordered my first batch of automation gear so that I could get a couple of small things setup to see how the family was going to react. I purchased 3 in wall switches (A couple of relays and a dimmer) and several plug in modules for controlling lamps and such. I talked it over with the family and then installed the first 2 switches in my office on my lights and ceiling fan and the other dimmer in our dining room. I also put some lamp modules around the house and got them integrated into the network. Now it was time to setup some events and see how much everyone hates it...:-)
My wife is not a fan of overhead lighting, she likes lamps. As such each evening she would go around the house and turn on about 5 lamps. 3 of these would remain on all night so that if we had to get up in the middle of the night, we can see as we wander around to take care of children that refuse to sleep, dogs that are barking at shadows or just random annoying things that can only go wrong at night. So I used Homeseer to automate the process of turning these lamps on and off when my wife normally would. Each evening a few minutes before Sunset all 5 lamps turn on. Then at 10 PM two of them turn off and the others are turned off a few minutes after Sunrise in the morning. Shockingly, this was a big hit. It works great, and everyone loves the fact that the lights come on at just the right time in the evening, and then proceed to just take care of themselves.
Riding high on this initial success I have automated several more things around the house, setup several different technologies and am working on touchpad control and integration of the multiple sub systems and technologies. This is a FUN project, and each time I set something up and the family enjoys the result I like it even more.
Friday, February 4, 2011
First Post!
Well, I have avoided blogging for a long time, but I am finally embarking upon a longer term project that I think is actually going to be fun to write about, Home Automation. Home Automation is something that has interested me for years, and while I have dabbled in it before, I have never had the time or money to fully invest in doing it before.
For those of you who do not know what Home Automation is, simply put it is automating routine and repeatable tasks around your home. My goal with this is to create an environment that responds to the people in the house and reacts to what they are doing. This can be something as simple as having a light come on when I enter a room, or a light shutting off when no one is in a room.
I will be putting up stories, how-to's and technology reviews over time, so I hope you enjoy what you see!
For those of you who do not know what Home Automation is, simply put it is automating routine and repeatable tasks around your home. My goal with this is to create an environment that responds to the people in the house and reacts to what they are doing. This can be something as simple as having a light come on when I enter a room, or a light shutting off when no one is in a room.
I will be putting up stories, how-to's and technology reviews over time, so I hope you enjoy what you see!
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