Home Automation
Volume Number: 16
Issue Number: 6
Column Tag: Tech Home
Home Automation: The Geeks Holy Grail
by Neil Ticktin, Publisher, MacTech Magazine
STAR TREK
OK... I admit it. I'm one of those closet geeks that looks forward to the day of having
"Star Trek" level of control of my surroundings. And, given what we saw on the last
MacTech reader survey, most of you feel the same way I do (actually, nearly 80% of
you).
Home Automation (HA for short) has long been the holy grail for techies of all types.
Today, there are some great options, and things are looking even better all the time. In
looking at Mac-based HA, a whole new world has opened up. Some folks have been at
this kind of stuff for years - at a variety of levels. But, if you haven't gotten started,
now is a great time to do so.
With this article, we're going to take an initial, and broad, look at HA and how you can
have the "home of tomorrow" today. Of course, the centerpiece of this is... your Mac.
One caveat up front: this article is so broad that if you aren't interested in the part you
are reading... just skip to the next part, it'll be about something different.
What do you want to accomplish?
First, you need to determine what you want to accomplish with HA. This may seem like
a trivial question - but it's actually quite difficult. And, you really, really need to
determine the impact of SAF "Spouse Approval Factor" in what you are doing.
For example, our electrician told my wife stories about a house that seemed straight
out of Amityville Horror or Poltergeist. There were some problems with the automated
lights that sent random signals... lights would literally turn on and off in an almost
haunted manner. This not only concerned me, but I got some stern looks from my wife
(understandably).
Being conservative (and realistic), I decided to take an approach that accomplished HA,
but was designed in a way that if things didn't work the way we wanted, we could revert
to conventional (non-automated) methods. This not only gave me a lot of flexibility in
my own comfort level, but drastically increased the SAF. And, increasing SAF is always
a good thing.
New Construction or Retrofit?
Implementing your goals prompts a series of other questions. The biggest of which is
whether you are building a new environment, or do you need to retrofit the existing
environment? This is a huge question, and it will govern many of the implementation
decisions that you need to make.