Smart Homes
You enter your house and the lights are switched on automatically.
Your dog is sleeping peacefully and you are not infuriated at
his audacity. You move to your kitchen and take a cup of hot coffee
that start brewing before you arrived. Soon your favorite song
floats in the air to ease you. What the heck is going on here,
you wonder. Am I being punked - again?
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No matter how fantasy-like it may seem
smart homes are making it possible for you if you have the
moolah flowing in (and by moolah I mean cash cow).
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From managing your security to lowering your electricity bills,
smart homes are capable of saving every bit of your energy and
time which can be utilized and burned in your official work (or
wasted on the golf course or tipping pole dancers).
Smart homes equipped with these updated systems and technologies
will not only increase your efficiency but also will provide you
with a comfort which was once available to the kings and queens
with the aide of hundreds of servants around them. The science
in our age has made the older days of that royal leisure serve
us today (at least I had this dream last night).
A question arises often when one thinks of making his home smart
- whether the system will work in his house build in old style
or does he need to construct an entire new home to avail this
technology? The answer lies somewhere between the two extremes.
If the house is not well structured enough to accommodate the
fixing and execution of new devices, it needs to be renovated.
And if one is thinking of building a new house, it is always suggested
to plan his smart home before hand.
You may not want to renovate or make structural changes to your
old house as the devices have to be installed with the central
controlling system that works on infra-red and radio signals (along
with magic captured in a jar). In simple words your the central
controlling device will be able to talk to other appliances in
house through a certain codified signal. Several kinds of radio
networks are suggested and the customer can choose accordingly.
Spoiler Alert (here is where I get unfunny and rather technical).
IRDA, INSTEON, ZIGBEE, Z-WAVE are some of the ray-signaled networks
which differ from each other in their range and speed. If the
house is small a Z-wave and IRDA networking will work efficiently,
however a big house will require Zig-Bee network. INSTEON though
is a combination of both wiring system and infrared-network will
prove more competent in many ways. The speed of the accomplishment
of a task is more than other networking system amongst the different
appliances at home.
While other networks will transmit the orders through a set passage,
INSTEON will make sure to spread it everywhere till the orders
are taken up and implemented. Wiring systems, like- X10, HomePlug
{IEEE P1901}, ITU G.hn {G.9960}, Universal Powerline Association,
can be put up while constructing a house but it has its own demerits.
For example X10 wiring system works within the numerical codes,
one type of numerical code is transmitted to a particular device
which has to perform a certain task and it has the same numeric
code (similar to the DaVinci Code).
But in the transmission process, the numeric message may get
distorted as the same system is performing the other functions
as well, at that particular time. In this case the message will
not reach and the desired function will not be performed. INSTEON,
here can prove to be better and reliable option than the other
networks.
The cost of smart homes varies according to the tasks it will
be programmed to perform. Where a mere management of the lighting
in the house will cost you a few hundred dollars, a well equipped
house with a thermostat, automatic theatre system, finger print-locks,
appliances on/off system, security management with close circuit
cameras (plus retinal and rectal scans) and several other functions
can charge you from $10,000 to $250,000 and must be paid all in
pennies.
However the mere reduction of the automatic home theatre system
will bring down half the cost. So if you desire a smart home,
you merely have to choose according to your budget. And you will
get a place which you will call not only "Home Sweet Home"
but also "Home, Smart Home."
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