Most of our electronic devices in our home such as DVD player, TV, Surround Sound Receiver, are controlled by Infrared (IR). Our regular remote controllers are designed for issuing these IR commands. In order to efficiently use an IR controlled device in our home automation system, there are a few things we need to consider.

Turning it on

Standing in front of our TV, we are in control. If the TV is off, we press that big red button which says POWER, and the TV turns on. Once we decide to turn the TV off, we do exactly the same. We press the big red button which says POWER, and the TV turns off. Simple. Even a toddler can do it. But how about our home automation system?

Definitely Maybe

What is obvious for us, to see whether the TV is on or not, it is a challenge for the home automation system, which has no eyes to see. Using the same button, POWER, is another challenge. Since the POWER button works like a toggle, alternating between on and off, it is quite difficult for the system to exactly determine, what is going to happen, when it sends the POWER command to the TV. If we instruct the system to turn the TV on, while the TV is on, the POWER command will turn it off. So exactly the opposite will happen, not what we asked the system to do.

The INPUT button

Let’s watch a DVD instead of our regular TV channels! Our DVD is conneted to the TV via INPUT2. Simple. We pickup the TV remote, and press the INPUT button. If we can not see the DVD player’s screen at once, we keep pushing the INPUT button, until will finally get to the DVD. Once we are done, we switch back to our regular program, by pressing the same INPUT button, untill the TV signal shows up. That’s another easy task for us, but another difficult task for the automation system.

Working Around

There are many ways to work around these problems, however these methods are still exactly what they are called, they are only a work around. Let’s see an example:

Discrete Infrared controls

Instead of having only POWER and INPUT commands, we can use (if we are lucky to find them) the so called discrete commands. Power ON and Power OFF instead of POWER, and INPUT2, INPUT-TV commands instead of INPUT. This should be good enough!
But let’s see what happens, if we instruct our control system, to use these commands.

The TV is On, and we instruct the control system, to turn the TV on. Since we have a discrete ON command now, that should take care of that. And yes, the TV does not turn off this time, but something else happens. The TV screen blinks for a few second and we loose a few seconds of our favorite TV show.
Let’s try now, the INPUT-TV command. While the we are watching our regular TV channel, let’s issue the INPUT-TV command. Nothing should happen, since we are watching TV already. Once we pushed the INPUT-TV button, the TV screen freezes for a second or two, and switches to TV input, just in case.
If we can live with the work arounds above, our automation system will do what we instruct it to do, even if there will be a few artifacts, during the process.

We deserve better

If we are planning to have a home automation system, we should choose our TV, DVD and other equipment, accordingly. It is most of the time, not even a money issue. Many of the TV, DVD, Receiver manufacturers make the custom installation friendly version of the same products. These custom friendly units are equipped with a 2-way communication device, which allows the automation system to check their current status, and then issue the desired commands accordingly.

The most commonly used 2-way communication method is called RS-232, or serial protocol. It is very easy to recognize those devices which can be controlled via RS-232. They have a 9 pin connector with the label : RS-232.

Load me up

Our home automation system is equipped with serveral RS-232 ports, anticipating this commonly used method, to be the major way controlling our electronic devices.
Connecting our TV via the RS-232 port to the automation system, there is no more maybe. Before the systems would issue the ON command, it will first check the status of the TV, via the RS-232 link. And if the TV sends back the response, that is already On, nothing else need to be done. Clase closed.

Our “Independent” World:

Our modern home, our private, independent World reiles on electricity, more than ever. The thermostat on the wall is using electricity to control the heating and cooling. The furnace becomes useless without the electrical fan which moves the air. Without power, there is no TV, telephone or Internet service, either. We can’t even enter our home without electricity, since the incapacitated electrical gate opening mechanism will keep us outdoors.

Smart homes then, are not smart at all?

Yes, the smart homes are smart. We just have to make sure that we are smart enough, too, when we build our smart home. We need to pay attention and spend some time and money on securing our power supply.

First step, financial considerations

When we receive the quotations from our suppliers, let’s spend some time evaluating our future home’s features. If we feel that, our budget is maxed out, leaving no room for any extra, we should be very cautious. If there is no surge protection, backup power fuctionality in the plan, we can find ourselves in a very sad situation during the first major power outage, maybe not so long after we have moved in to our new home. It is better to settle for less features, and leave some of them out or move certain features to the future option column, but we should seriously consider having proper backup power in our home.

How much backup is enough?

That depends on our budget of course. If we can afford building a small power plant in our backyard, that is of course the best. However, if we need to stay realistic, we should be able to determine our basic needs, based on the following guidelines.

Less is more:

If we need to run our home on backup power, then using less power at once, will make our backup supply to last longer. We can discuss with the electician to arrange a limited set of light circuits to be on backup power, instead of trying to supply the whole house, during power outage. Major entry and exit routes, sleeping areas are probably enough. We can also make arrangemet to keep our freezers running, so the family will not remain without food, in case of a greater emergency situation.

Alternatives:

If we make arrangements for the case of power outage, then we will most likely be able to ride it out, no matter how long it will last. A woodburning fireplace in the house can probably keep at least one room warm, if the power goes out in the middle of the winter. Our camping stove can also be a great helper in the kitchen.

Gates and doors:

If we arrange for a mechanical bypassing option for our entries, then we will not be locked out, and more importantly we would not have to leave our gates or doors open, when the power is out. Most electrical gates can be equipped with a bypass key, which lets us open and secure our gates, manually. If we have a side door which can be installed with a mechanical locks, then we have a safe entry to the house, too.

Alarm System:

Our alarm system most likely comes with its, own separate backup power. Just let’s make sure, that there is a wireless link to the monitoring station, which can be used even when there is no power in the house.

Telephones:

Most local telephone systems can be run from backup power. If the backup would run out, then the sytstem will automatically switch to no power mode. It will route the incoming telephone lines to the designated emergency telephone sets. We just need to know, which phones are set up for the emergency mode, to be able to make a call.

What happens when the power is finally back?

This is another question, which we need to ask from our suppliers, during the construction of our home. How is the power swtiching going to act, when the electricity is out, and when it comes back? Also, the automation, heating and other systems has to have their own mechanisms to handle the power outage.

Is fiber optics the right choice?

To be able to answer the question correctly, first we have to define what we would like to future proof in our home. Let’s consider the following items: home control (lighting, alarm, HVAC, audiovusial), distributed audio and video, computer network, telephone and televison services.

Timing is evertyhing

Another important factor shoud be to agree on how long term we are planning for. If we look at the average lifetime of a home, which is 30-70 years, that seems to be quite a long strech. Let’s choose another, more manageable time span. The time between major renovations is approximately 10 – 15 years. That seems workable.

The answer is:

We should look at future proofing from a very practical point of view: Is there anything we know today, which is faster than the speed of light? If the answer is no (which I suppose it is), then there is a great chance for being all right with using fiber optics for futre proofing our home.

But can we do more ?

Can we go one step forward? Can we use fiber optics in our home today? It would be nice to put our future proofing investment to work for us, right away.

To answer this question, we need to gather the features which are available today, using fiber optics.

Internet:

Internet providers are already offering fiber optics based services. But even if we receive our Internet feed over the telephone line (DSL), via the cable TV (cable modem) or even wirelessly, we can convert that incoming signal into fiber based network in house, using the appropriate hardware.

Telephone:

If we consider that we can have an IP (Internet Protocol) based telephone system in our home, utilizing our local network, then we don’t have to worry about this part since we already know that we can use fiber optics for networking.

Television Services:

The local cable TV companies are developing their fiber networks, partly because they need more bandwidth to accomodate more high definiton channels and partly to keep up with the competing telephone companies. It will be very soon when they will offer fiber based services directly to the homes.

Home Control:

The majority of the home control systems are already using IP as their communication protocol. So this falls into the same category as telephone systems.

Distributed audio-video:

HDMI is the only adopted standard available today, to plug in anything with HD into our flat screen TV or Projector. Therefore, we shall suppose, that even if the cable TV will come to our house over fiber optics, there will be a set top box to conver the incoming signal to HDMI.

Putting it all together:

Is there any available technology which would allow to put all (or most) of these items together into one system? Crestron already ships their Digital Media system, integrated to use with their existing control systems.

Welcome to our blog section.

Here we are going to publish the latest news about our business, our site experience logs and other articles. If you like or dislike what we have to say, please feel free to leave a comment. If you would like to share your job site stories, please do so. More we hear from you, more we can improve our services.