Imagine the home of your dreams. Now imagine the home of your dreams that is fully networked, internet-enabled and integrated with the latest in high tech toys and appliances, controllable from your armchair or your office chair.
Jostling for position are permanent broadband internet, 42” plasma screens and top-of-the-line wireless surround sound speakers in your fully equipped media entertainment room with video conferencing facility. You have the latest in fully integrated household appliances controlled through wireless touch pads on your walls which also control your heating, lighting, blinds and if desired garden watering system.
Perhaps this is a little overkill but, as the prices and complexity of home networking products decrease and consumers begin to demand more enabled products to plug into their networks, the internet-enabled smart home is becoming more of a reality.
Complete integration
A truly smart-enabled home uses electronic networking technologies to integrate the various devices and appliances found in almost all homes, but also builds systems more common in factories and offices, so that an entire home can be controlled centrally or remotely as a single machine.
There are several elements to a digital home, without which the true experience cannot be achieved. The process however can be done in stages by first setting up a beginners system and moving to a more advanced solution as time goes on. CMS Peripherals stock most of the products needed in getting together the pieces to set up an enabled home and recommend the following steps.
Element 1 – The Network
A network is vital to a digital home, it’s like the arteries of the body, without which you can’t distribute your content.
For a basic setup an ADSL modem/ router is needed, (available from Netgear), this takes the Broadband input and allows you to connect to broadband from other laptops and PC’s using wired or non wired systems. You will also need network cards (wired or wireless) in each PC or Laptop.
Netgear 108Mbps Super G Wireless ADSL Modem Router (€139)
Netgear 108Mbps Super G Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter (€69)
Netgear 108Mbps Super G Wireless Laptop PC Card Cost (€69)
Element 2- Storage
Digital content requires space, lot’s of it. A range of external drives are available from Seagate, Iomega and Western Digital.
Recommended are the following from Seagate.
Seagate 300GB Pushbutton Backup USB2.0 7200RPM (€239)
250GB Seagate Value Line USB2.0 7200RPM 2MB External (€159)
Element 3- Acquisition software
You need to get video, photos and music on to the PC in a format that can be streamed round the home.
The following Magix products allow content to be taken from digital cameras, camcorders and CDs and stored on the home PC.
Movies 2 Go €44.99
Movie Edit Pro €59.99
Photos on DVD €29.99
MP3 Maker €44.99
Element 4- Streaming devices
Streaming devices are products that allow video/ TV or music to be streamed around the home. Typically you have remote receivers for each room or portable receivers to carry with you to any room in the house or outside in the garden.
Slingmedia Slingbox €299
Evesham Technology MBox music/radio system €999.
Element 5 – Surge protection and backup
A power failure or spikes in the electricity (caused by electric storms) can kill your PC and you risk losing everything if you do not have sufficient surge protection and back up. APC has surge protectors and backup systems that protect from spikes and keep things running in the event of power failure allowing you to close the network properly.
APC products start from €15.
Element 6- Data backup
If your hard drive fails you have lost your content, there are a range of options for backing up data, Central Databank provide offsite secure backup over the internet, CA have software that allows local backup.
Digital installers
At the affordable end of smart enabled homes, companies that provide complete digitised home solutions are E-nvi and Orkit who build solutions around Microsoft Media Centre technology.
Windows XP Media Centre is an operating system that turns a PC into a complete home entertainment centre, giving users access to all their media, and TV, and the Internet, remotely. Windows XP Media Centre Extender, included in Microsoft’s Xbox 360 games console allows consumers to extend Media Centre feature control to other parts of the home and other users, through devices other than PCs in either a wired or wireless capacity.
Orkit provides a complete solution including light, heating and security control, along with digital entertainment and internet access – all integrated into a single system and accessed by familiar Microsoft Windows interface.
An E-nvi enabled home has CAT 6 cabling with multiple network connection points and options for wireless connectivity. Text control via mobile phone is also possible with this kind of system to activate or deactivate aspects of the home set up; heating, lighting, security alarm and so on.
An alternative PC based home entertainment system also with XP Media Centre technology is Sony’s VGC-XL100, a VAIO home entertainment PC which connects directly to the TV. With full support for super-high quality DSD audio and HD video supported by Intel Viiv, the XL 100 is High Definition Media Interface capable, video recorder, music centre, DVD and TV player in one PC designed to fit right in the living room.
The digital fix
Smart-enabled homes in Ireland are still in their infancy, the demand for them is growing as consumers become more technology aware but in some cases old wiring systems, poor cabling and lack of connection points in the home can make digitising a home difficult.
Irish company Smarthomes, set up by Sean Gallagher and Derek Roddy in 2002, recognised this lack in future proofing of homes and now offer developers digital fixes in homes that support high speed Ethernet networking and support for triple play services from a third party of the homeowner’s choosing. CEO Sean Gallagher says the vision was to create a company that would do the digital fix in a home – laying the cable infrastructure that would support networking, broadband with the vision of making access to telephone, broadband and digital TV a necessity and not a luxury.
For the premium punters…
At the top end of smart-enabled homes in Ireland, companies like In Control Home Automation build server-based entertainment systems that distribute entertainment media to devices around the home.
Incontrol designs in-home systems that enable different technological systems to work together, since consumers might buy differently branded or set up products; one product for heating, one for lighting and one for entertainment.
The company installs advanced lighting systems with programmed mood lighting scene choices and linked motorised curtains or blind control can be timed to activate even in your absence, achieving an “At Home” look, while away. Motion detectors can be used to alter heating and power consumption in less-used rooms of the home and interfacing the system with a home automation controller enables easy adjustment and monitoring of heating levels to deliver comfort and efficiency.
In Control installs AMX control systems while other similar companies use Crestron systems. Both offer advanced home automation control with dedicated home cinemas calibrated for the ultimate sound and visual experience.
Crestron and AMX technology puts control of your home and all the appliances contained within at your fingertips, wherever you are, delivering some quite startling benefits.
For example, if you buy a product online but are working at the time of delivery, you would hear the doorbell over your office PC. You could activate your system to open the door while security cameras would monitor exactly what was happening at all times.
Sound like the sci-fi, home of some techie of the future? Due to the forward push of technological advance, the increasing availability of broadband internet and improvements in PC software, this is the kind of technology in smart enabled homes today.
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