Home Automation. Who needs it? Why bother? We’ve done so well without it for years, why change now? Can we get any lazier? As a lecturer on the topic of smart homes and emerging technologies, I regularly run across these questions.

Most people’s first mental image of automation is of a lot of kludgy machines that require a live-in engineer to keep things working efficiently.

Actually home automation is a misnomer. We don’t realize that our homes have been automated since the advent of indoor plumping and electricity. In this era, virtually all mechanical tasks in the modern home are automated. We just take it for granted.

When was the last time that you, or anyone you know used a gravity based outhouse, wound a phonograph record player,’ Without going to such extremes, when was the last time you heated water for a bath, swept a carpet, or actually got up to turn on the TV or stereo system? If you have, it’s only because there was a power outage or you lost the remote control.

Today, all homes are pretty much automated, from your garage door opener to your dishwasher, washer/dryer units, coffeemakers and electric can openers; each piece of electronic equipment automates a specific task in your home.

In fact, most modern homes have more sophisticated electronics than the Apollo 13 Spacecraft. The fact is that we live in a world of automation, and although it sounds futuristic, it’s not. We have all come to depend on several layers of automation in our lives. So much so that we’re so dependent on automated tasks that we suffer severe emotional upset if some electronic item doesn’t deliver as expected. Ever get rejected by an ATM? You know what I mean.

I personally have spent several minutes wandering around a room straightening out cushions, pillows, and stacks of magazines looking for the remote instead of walking up to the TV and changing the channel. And, have you ever vacuumed the same particle of lint over and over rather than bending over to pick it up? And then when you do it pick up, you manually feed it to the vacuum instead of walking it to the trashcan? Automation! I can count at least 50 tasks in the average household that are automated.

So, the real news is not that our homes are already automated, it’s that they’re not yet integrated, even though this technology is readily available and within the reach of the average consumer.

Integration is the ability to have all of your home’s unique electronic devices and computers talking to each other seamlessly via a telephone, a remote control or a residential gateway. Imagine having your electrical, security, audio video, heating-cooling system and lighting systems all perform their tasks independently, yet able to communicate with each other to create a secure, energy efficient, and comfortable home. Imagine a delivery person pressing your home’s doorbell button with instant notification being sent to your office computer, cell phone, or PDA that a package is being delivered. Or how about automatically being updated that the furnace at your vacation home is scheduled for a service call and it’s going to dip below freezing next week. Integration accomplishes just that level of convenience in our homes.

And, the reality is that it is possible and it’s done on a regular basis, and not just in the domain of the super rich, but also in the world of every man.

Currently there are several manufacturers that provide hardware and software allowing you to control your lighting system so that it responds to time of day, sound, and motion. Lighting scenes can be set to suit moods, events, or security conditions.

For example: When entertaining, a scene called can be set so that the entire house is illuminated to suit that particular event. The exterior lighting is set to create inviting path lights to greet your guests, while some rooms are lit brightly, others with subtle mood lighting and yet others remain dark to discourage entry.

For energy management you can buy integrated thermostats that control energy use through several periods of the day or different seasons, and that actually take steps to maintain the temperature by doing more than just shutting down or turning on the heating /cooling system. They can turn off lights, control heating-cooling dampers, control skylights, drapes or windows in order to control the temperature in a room or zone. In some cases these steps are far more energy efficient than simply engaging the heating/cooling system. In this era of energy shortages, energy management is not a luxury, but a realistic cost issue. Technology that sheds energy for use during a time when demand and costs are lower is a very sought after feature these days, and can save a homeowner a lot of money. This demand is sure to increase in the near future.

Concerning safety, you can integrate security systems that can detect an intrusion down to a specific zone, door, or window and log the time of day that the intrusion occurred. Security cameras can monitor a room or area, and respond to motion or sound, and can, as a result of this video detection, respond by recording the event, turning on lights, sounding an alarm in your home or out-calling your cell phone for help.

For home communications, more and more telephone systems have processors that allow integration with lighting, security and HVAC systems. They also easily handle most common phone commands such as line pick up, intercom, internal paging, and assigned ringing. Additional features include dialer interfaces to remotely arm and disarm alarm systems, or to initiate electronic functions such as controlling lights, locks, skylights, electronic windows etc

Let’s not forget entertainment. With the advent of web based music sites/video sites, you can now download your favorite music or video to a hard drive that can catalog your music into play lists by performer, music or video category. This media can then be broadcast throughout your entire house. Video systems are also capable of broadcasting security camera images from the front door or from a remote location such as your office, or your vacation house.

In the not so distant future, you’ll be able to purchase software that will not only integrate your home’s systems, but will also provide a web based home portal that will interface with most existing electrical and electronic wiring and control protocols. This portal will allow for active monitoring, scheduling, notification and control of all connected systems. In addition, each system is tied to its appropriate external service provider such as the security monitoring company, satellite and cable service, or the Internet service provider thereby creating fully integrated systems for the home

Many of these systems are already used in our homes and use the existing 110V electrical wiring, as well as infrared repeaters and radio frequency transmitting systems. Integration of these systems is easily achieved with hardware and software systems that can be obtained for a few hundred dollars to several thousands of dollars. As always, cost depends on the degree of sophistication and flexibility of equipment and the user’s needs.

So home automation and integration, who needs it? We all do. With a very minor investment most homeowners can maximize their security and control energy and resource costs, while increasing the lifestyle flexibility and available free time. After all the entire point of automation is to simplify tasks. Why not take it a step further and simply perform multiple tasks all at once.

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