Greg In The Desert

Last fall, I threatened that I would have the master bathroom completed by the end of the winter. Here it is spring and I did almost nothing to the bathroom. I have a variety of excuses that I wont go into now, however I did finally make some actual progress on it this weekend.

Before I can do anything I need to install the pocket door. Before I install the pocket door I need to relocate the wiring that exists on the wall where the door goes.

The wiring consists of power in, a wire to the lights controlled by a switch and a power out to a outlet. The good news is the wiring was easy to move to the next wall, it was loose in the attic and there was plenty of room to move it. I thought I would leave the outlet unpowered for now, until I figured out how I was going to rewire everything, apparently the wire to the outlet is also hooked up to the living room.

Now I have a problem that I need to wire that outlet back up, so i have Romex running along the other side of the bathroom along up to the switch. It looks pretty messy and dangerous in the pictures, I know. Trust me it’s safe and temporary.

I need to decide how to wire up a exhaust fan, will it go near the light switch or near the toilet? I also need to figure out if I’m going to use a fancy digital shower control. If so It will use the power from the outlet then I can wire it up properly.

Finally I can install the pocket door. I have the studs marked to cut down, but I’m waiting for some friends to come by and verify my measurements before I screw it all up. I will save the pocket door install for another post.

It’s been a while since I wrote about my Home Automation system. Since moving in to this house I’ve been focused on other things than HA, but I have managed to get it working at a minimum level. The use of Insteon devices has also helped things along.

X10 is, of course, the 20+ year old power line networking protocol.For me, X10 is pretty much dead. I’ve almost completely switched out all my X10 devices for Insteon devices. Primarily due to the fact that X10 is slower and more prone to signal loss. This week I switched out the bathroom light switch and the front porch light switch because the computer wasn’t able to reliably change their status, where as they were working just fine weeks before. For no apparent reason X10 devices seem to do this despite the fact that I have filter on nearly everything. The Insteon website says the following:

INSTEON is a robust, redundant dual-mesh network that combines wireless radio frequency (RF) with the home’s existing electrical wiring. INSTEON is less susceptible than other single band networks to the kind of interference and noise commonly encountered within the home. INSTEON leverages the latest digital technology to create a true peer-to-peer mesh network. Because all INSTEON devices are peers, they do not require network supervision, so complex network controllers and routing tables are not required.

Insteon devices are also cheap, compared to their X10 counterparts. I recall a original X10 Switchlinc dimmer cost nearly $50 (seem to be cheaper now), where as a Insteon SwitchLinc V2 lists for $39.99. I’ve been able to find them for nearly $10 a piece. Smarthome also has ICON products, they are cheaper alternaitves to the SwitchLincs. An ICON Dimmer Switch has less features but costs $24.99. If you can live without the features its a good deal.

I know there are other protocol out there that try to do the same, I’ve not tried them because the software I use, Indigo, doesn’t support them. I suspect one day it will support all the alternatives. For now I’m quite happy with Insteon.

(This is a paper I wrote for my Advanced Composition class. The assignment was a “Definition Paper”, I received a “A”.)

When you put together the words “home” and “automation,” it often doesn’t mean anything to people. However, having a light switch can technically be a form of automation, since it allows one to turn on a light without having to get into the electrical connections or having to screw in a light bulb every time the light needs to come on. Therefore, home automation means reducing the number of tasks to perform some action in your home.

An automated home can be very simple. Some forms of simple automation include the light switch, garage door opener, dishwasher, and microwave oven. A dishwasher saves the user from having to wash dishes by hand. A wireless remote control in use with a motorized garage door opener saves the user from having to get out of the car to manually open the garage. A microwave is as common as a conventional oven, and in some cases replaces it. Even the Clapper, a device that lets you turn something on by clapping your hands, is a form of home automation. Today we consider these necessities of living and may even take them for granted. Who washes their clothes or even their dishes by hand today? A 100 years ago dishwashers were people you hired, there was no need for a garage door openers since people didn’t have cars (or garages).

When people speak of home automation they are most likely talking about capabilities beyond what is standard in a home today. To the enthusiast, home automation means reducing tasks to performing some action in the home far more that what is common. It often goes beyond reducing beyond reducing tasks to anticipating what tasks will need to be performed in the future.

To do this, one needs more than just a light switch: one needs a computer with the proper software and the ability to inter face the computer with the light switch. Not just one light switch but all the light switches, the stereo, the ceiling fans, the appliances, etc. The computer will need to know if it’s dark out, if it’s raining, what the internal temperature of the house is, etc. The more data the house can collect, the better.

Let&risqué;s say it is very early in the morning or late at night and dark. You need to get up to go to the bathroom or get ready for work. In doing so you have to fumble around in the dark to find the light switch. When you turn on the light it wakes your spouse. Having the light come on instantly at full brightness isn’t the most pleasant experience after being asleep for several hours. An advanced automated home solves this problem. First, motion detectors or proximity detectors detect that someone is getting up to go somewhere in the house. Since the computer knows it’s dark out and all the lights are off, it can turn on some very low boor lighting. As the detectors follow you through the house they can turn on lighting as you walk and turn off lighting behind you. A very smart system could predict where you’re going and turn on lighting ahead of you. When you arrive in the bathroom there’s no need to look for the light switch; the computer will turn it on for you based on motion detector data. But it will not turn the lights all the way on, it will calculate the time between sunset and sunrise and determine what percentage to turn the light on (30% for example). Once you have left the bathroom and gone back to bed the computer would know this and turn off the lighting behind you.

Another use of advanced home automation is controlling other systems in the house and eliminating the human element all together (so the human element can go do more interesting things). By gathering weather information,temperature, rainfall data, and forecasts, the computer could manage the watering of the grass and plants. lf it knows what the watering requirements of the plants are and how much water they have received historically, it can calculate how much water they will need in the future. lf it knows the weather forecast-’ can give the plants water or back because rain is expected. A very advanced system could have cameras that look at the color of the grass and determine that it needs fertilizer. It also has the advantage of “saving the environment” by giving the landscape only the amount of water it needs and not over watering.

Much of the systems described are very advanced and not in widespread use today. The hobbyists and home automation industry developing these systems are much like the same people who experimented with electric light over one hundred years ago. What we consider standard today would be considered magic to some back A century from now home automation will probably still not be a common term, yet many of the systems that are considered advanced today will be common place or even considered a necessity.