Smart House. History of invention and production

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HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY, TECHNOLOGY, OBJECTS AROUND US
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Smart House. History of invention and production

The history of technology, technology, objects around us

Directory / The history of technology, technology, objects around us

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No matter how surprising it sounds - automating your home is much cheaper than renovating it. This does not require any visible changes: no need to tear off the wallpaper, hammer concrete walls, etc. - all control takes place via conventional electrical wires. Enough to have electricity in your house.

The simplest automation kit consists of three main types of devices. This is the controller - the "brain" of the system, a device for turning something on and off and a device for smoothly turning on and off the light. Each device plugs into a regular outlet. The controller remains in it, and table lamps, coffee makers, kettles, air conditioners, etc. are connected to the other two types of devices. In the case of lamp control devices, you can also use special adapters screwed into the lamp base.

Smart home elements (click to enlarge)

It is enough to set the code of the house or apartment, the device code, the commands for turning it on and off on the controller, and you can enjoy life. To control table lamps, there are also more "intelligent" devices that remember the level of illumination at the time of shutdown and restore it when turned on.

One of the most common home automation technologies today is the X10. “Naturally, we can connect a music center or a VCR to the X10 controller,” writes Aleksey Fedorov in the Computer-Press magazine, “only this will not be of much use, since a VCR that is disconnected from the network will immediately (or after some time) “forget " about the channel numbers, and the music center will lose the settings for the radio stations. The solution to this problem lies in the acquisition of devices that can convert the X10 signals into infrared signals, similar to those sent by a conventional remote control. Thus, from a conventional controller it will be possible to control more sensitive devices.

No less interesting is the ability to control all devices from a single remote control. For example, instead of going to the kitchen and turning off the lights or turning on the coffee maker, you can simply press a couple of buttons. This feature, for example, is available in the IBM Home Director (HD) suite, which allows you to control six audio or video devices and ten devices connected to the X10 controller.

It is clear that we can add light sensors, motion sensors, miniature video cameras, a car proximity sensor (relevant in the country, but not in the city!) and so on to our basic set. This will allow us to find out if the neighbors in the communal apartment are eavesdropping under the door, is someone standing at the front door, not daring to press the bell button, etc.

New opportunities open up if you have a personal computer.

Using the HD kit, you can set scenarios for switching on and off lighting and various devices in the house, automatically monitor changes in illumination, create sequences of X10 commands and record them as macros, and control devices directly from a computer. In this case, commands can either be sent by the computer, or they can be entered into the controller's memory and the computer turned off - HD will work autonomously.

The functions provided by the HD are similar to those of the X10 ActiveHome and allow you to use software and accessories designed for ActiveHome. The set of additional modules can be extended by almost any X10-compatible device.

To expand the functionality of the HD, you can use a kit that includes five additional X10 modules. One of the most popular today is the Home Vision set, which consists of a control unit and tools for controlling devices. This set allows you to control devices both from a computer and from the TV screen. All programming is done with a computer, which can then be used for real-time monitoring and control. It can store up to 256 commands and allows them to be transmitted over the received signal. Control is carried out both directly by X10 commands and by infrared commands. Various sensors can be connected to the device, the activation of which can lead to the occurrence of various software "events". What should happen as a result of such "events" is up to the user to decide.

With HouseLink, you can create a plan of an apartment, a floor, or an entire house. It is necessary to specify the devices that need to be controlled and the location of the controllers. The software allows you to receive real-time information about the status of a particular device.

All control is carried out by infrared signals, which are sent both from the computer and from the device unit itself. HouseLink, you can set various conditions: time of year, time of day, the status of certain devices. The block itself decides whether this or that command should be executed. For example, when you turn on a home theater system, a different level of illumination can be automatically selected depending on the time of day.

We can say that the classic home control device is the ActiveHome Automation Kit. It allows you to use a computer or a remote control to perform all operations to control X10-compatible devices.

The device includes a remote control and a module for controlling the light. Its main module is connected to a personal computer via a serial port.

You can control X10 compatible devices with your voice. For this, for example, the HomeVoice package is used.

"It uses the latest speech recognition technology, with which you can simply say commands, - writes Alexey Fedorov. - Using HomeVoice MultiRoom Kit, you can control the whole house or apartment from any room. Working with HomeVoice, you select command phrases and associate them with the actions to be taken. Such an action can be an X10 command, a command sent via IR, a macro, etc. - it all depends on the capabilities of a particular controller. HomeVoice acknowledges receipt of a command and even responds to them. For example, in response on the command "I'm home" HomeVoice plays "Welcome. How was your day?" or any other phrase of your choice.

HomeVoice has the ability to respond differently to commands spoken by different people. This can be useful in cases where some actions can be initiated, for example, only by the father of the family.

As we noted above, HomeVoice MultiRoom Kit allows you to control the controller from any room. This package includes a MixMax mixer that allows you to balance signals from eight different microphones, a signal compressor and software."

Those who are not afraid of alterations in their home can install combination switches instead of conventional ones. They combine the functions of conventional switches and X10 controllers. Wall-mounted controllers displaying the current status on liquid crystal panels look original. Instead of computer controllers, you can also use special illuminated panels that successfully perform the functions of a "dispatcher".

In the simplest case, IR signal transmitters can be used to control audio and video equipment in the form of a music center, a set of connected units or an entire home theater. The Whole-House Audio/Video system is much more complicated. This system is based on a centralized source of audio and video signals and speakers and screens distributed throughout the rooms. Control over such a system is carried out both from the panel and from a conventional remote control. There are several ways to implement such a system.

The simplest of them is based on a single amplifier / receiver. It is he who distributes the signals to different rooms. Each room has its own volume control. When selecting a signal source, the IR signal distribution system is used.

More complex is the system of dividing rooms into "zones" - in this case, signals from different sources can be played in each zone. In this case, you can use special multi-zone amplifiers.

And, of course, all audio and video equipment can be controlled using a computer. The already considered systems are quite suitable for this, moreover, they are equipped with speech recognition tools such as HomeVoice. All this allows, for example, each member of the family to watch and listen to what he wants and, most importantly, where he wants.

You can make your favorite music accompany you throughout the house. The secret is simple enough. It is only necessary to correctly position the motion sensors and configure them so that they turn on and off the corresponding source.

Author: Musskiy S.A.

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