When I was working at Microsoft, I had a guy working in my group who loved home automation. I spent a few minutes chatting with him but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why someone would bother spending money on stuff like this. After all, what's wrong with a $2 switch?
Then I started to build our vacation home and one by one, I got myself deeper and deeper into this. For starters, I wanted a way to set back the thermostat and then turn it up before driving there. Then I thought, I don't want to leave anything on before we leave the place for weeks. Next, I worried about security and wanted to install cameras. Found out that they don't work well at night so thought about turning the lights on if someone walks by the cameras.
Next was the classic theater situation. Hit pause and have th lights come up halfway. Then, as our kids do all the time, have everything shut down, including the projector, if no one is in the theater for many hours.
Now, if you have all of this, why not hit one button that says "I am going to sleep" and have it light up the path to bedroom and gradually turn off the lights behind you? How about a sensor under the steps to the loft so that the lights come up as I walk upstairs to it?
Wait, there is more! How about having the equipment fan in the entertainment cabinet turn on gradually as the temp goes up rather than running all the time, using power and making (a bit of) noise.
The list kept piling up. Added were knowing that the generator had kicked in (we have a lot of power failures) and shutting down some of the loads that it doesn't use too much propane (e.g. turning down the heat pump temp). And on and on.
Net, net, I am deep into this thing now . Not all the projects have been done. But lighting is in with automation. Nice to hit one button and have the house shut down gradually. Lights outside coming on low at night (but not overriding if someone has already turned them on). And by morning, having them all go off.
It is a lot of fun and a ton of learning in the process. The latter is the reason for this subforum. I found that there was no good place on the web to discuss all topics like this. There are forums for Pros, forums for low-end units but no discussion place to get educated on higher-end applications like I have described.
So where do you stand on such things? Have you wished there was some automation in your house? If you do have automation, what do you use it for?
Then I started to build our vacation home and one by one, I got myself deeper and deeper into this. For starters, I wanted a way to set back the thermostat and then turn it up before driving there. Then I thought, I don't want to leave anything on before we leave the place for weeks. Next, I worried about security and wanted to install cameras. Found out that they don't work well at night so thought about turning the lights on if someone walks by the cameras.
Next was the classic theater situation. Hit pause and have th lights come up halfway. Then, as our kids do all the time, have everything shut down, including the projector, if no one is in the theater for many hours.
Now, if you have all of this, why not hit one button that says "I am going to sleep" and have it light up the path to bedroom and gradually turn off the lights behind you? How about a sensor under the steps to the loft so that the lights come up as I walk upstairs to it?
Wait, there is more! How about having the equipment fan in the entertainment cabinet turn on gradually as the temp goes up rather than running all the time, using power and making (a bit of) noise.
The list kept piling up. Added were knowing that the generator had kicked in (we have a lot of power failures) and shutting down some of the loads that it doesn't use too much propane (e.g. turning down the heat pump temp). And on and on.
Net, net, I am deep into this thing now . Not all the projects have been done. But lighting is in with automation. Nice to hit one button and have the house shut down gradually. Lights outside coming on low at night (but not overriding if someone has already turned them on). And by morning, having them all go off.
It is a lot of fun and a ton of learning in the process. The latter is the reason for this subforum. I found that there was no good place on the web to discuss all topics like this. There are forums for Pros, forums for low-end units but no discussion place to get educated on higher-end applications like I have described.
So where do you stand on such things? Have you wished there was some automation in your house? If you do have automation, what do you use it for?