When most people visit a custom electronics installer, they want a Ferrari—or, at least, the audiovisual equivalent of a Ferrari. In more literal terms, that’s a state-of-the-art home theater system. But the sexiness of those systems steals attention from another part of the installer’s repertoire: home automation.

Don’t take this statement the wrong way.  A truly excellent home theater system will greatly enhance your life. But it is those practical (dare we say mundane?) elements like lighting, climate control, security and communications that often distinguish the merely enjoyable from the truly luxurious.

Home automation combines many functions on a single keypad. Aprilaire’s 8870 thermostat (top left) can be triggered through keypads from a variety of companies.  (Click images to enlarge)

The trick to understanding home automation is to think of these elements as one, not as separate disciplines. Home automation is the art and science that ties these systems together so that each works with the others. More important, though, is that all systems combine to bring you the full benefits available from today’s advanced products.
 
Rather than talk about the technology that makes home automation possible, let us begin with a concrete example:Morning breaks and you’re in dreamland. Music whispers gently from hidden speakers. The sound gradually rises to bring you to consciousness. The bedroom lights glow softly, instead of glaring so brightly that they dazzle you. There is no cold floor to endure; the temperature in your bedroom is already comfortable even though it was delightfully cool all night. Is that the lights in the bathroom getting brighter? Good, now you will not trip over the cat on the way to the shower.

Your favorite TV news show introduces the day’s events as you shave, shower and prepare for a day at the office. Wait a minute—you never turned on the bathroom TV, did you? And you definitely did not turn the music off, but you no longer hear it. Down in the kitchen, the coffee’s ready and your favorite pastry is warming in the oven. In another few moments, your car starts and the garage door opens. Your automated house is bidding you adieu.
 
Notice one thing about all this: Not once did you touch a light switch, turn an appliance on, or even look for your car keys. Your home did everything all by itself, with no input from you. Now that’s what we mean by automation!

The Brains Behind the Scene 
Obviously, something is at work here. But magic it is not—nor Merlin, nor Harry Potter. Instead, what you have just experienced comes from a certain amount of introspection, a little bit of research and the consultation and careful craftsmanship of a qualified custom installer or home automation specialist.

LiteTouch’s 5000LC controller (top right) interfaces keypads with lights. (Click images to enlarge)

Remember those systems we mentioned before? Here’s a more complete list: entertainment, lighting, climate control (usually called HVAC, for heating, ventilation and air conditioning), security, communications and household cleaning. As we said, they all have to work together. But first, they need to be introduced. That task falls to something called a central control processor. The terminology may sound intimidating, but you can think of this processor as a domestic mastermind—and know that this mastermind simply coordinates all those subsystems.

The reason we need the coordination provided by the central processor is that each subsystem has a mind of its own. Depending on the extent of home automation you opt for, your controller may need to interface with hardware for security, lighting, communications, a home theater, distributed audio and video, HVAC, etc.Would you like another example to make things clearer?
You’re going on a trip and the house will be vacant for a few days. You press a button marked “vacation” on your security keypad. This activates the security system, which detects intruders, fire, smoke and carbon monoxide.
 
But wait, as the old TV commercial says, there’s more!

Your security subsystem controller sends a message to your domestic mastermind and the vacation command goes to several other subsystems. The temperature throughout your home gradually moves to the most energy-efficient setting. (If you’re not going to be there, who cares about absolute comfort?) Your lighting system goes into a “random” mode, so lights go on and off as they might when someone’s actually there. That apparently random effect is enhanced by a light sensor, which automatically tells the lighting system controller when the day is overcast. (Click images to enlarge)

What about emergencies, such as fire or burglary? Your security subsystem has already notified authorities. It can also notify you through a message to your cell phone or via a live camera feed over the Internet, so you can monitor everything in real time from a remote location. Then it sends a signal (through the central control processor, of course) to the lighting system to turn on all the home’s interior and exterior lights, including a flashing security strobe on your roof to make your home instantly identifiable to approaching police or firefighters.
 
As you see, a truly automated home almost thinks for itself.

Some Light On the Subject
Now that you understand the big picture, consider one more important subsystem of the automated home: lighting.
 
First, realize that lighting serves many purposes in addition to keeping us from falling down the stairs in the middle of a dark night. Although we often pay lip service to lighting’s decorative potential, comparatively few homes now include a carefully executed lighting strategy. And that’s a shame, as light can add a sophisticated design touch to both interiors and exteriors.
 
Lighting experts refer to various arrangements of lighting fixtures and bulb types as scenes. Thus, if you hear a consultant refer to a reading scene or a romantic scene, he or she is thinking of the cumulative effect of all the lights illuminating a certain area. It could be a den, a dining room, a bathroom or the pool and garden area. The best way to set these scenes is with a lighting controller. The controller lets you create a coherent mood throughout your home by pushing just one button on a wall-mounted panel or a touchscreen.For example, push the “reading” button and your favorite lamp begins glowing at just the right intensity as the other lights in your den complement it. You can see everything surrounding you, thanks to recessed ceiling lights or wall sconces, but the real focus of the room is now your favorite chair. Oh, and don’t forget that spotlight hitting a favorite piece of artwork on the opposite wall, either. After all, man does not live by words alone!

How is all of this accomplished? With the lighting controller, of course. Every light in your home connects to the controller, whether the lights and switches are wired directly into it or communicate with it wirelessly. The controller can turn every light in your home on or off, or dim them. It can also monitor what’s going on in the house and trigger lights to suit different situations, i.e., it can turn the outdoor lights on at 6 p.m. precisely or just whenever the sun goes down, or it might automatically turn off your home theater lights when your video projector is running.

We haven’t even begun to describe the almost-limitless varieties of lighting fixtures; for a tour of that area, ask your interior designer. The point is that a good lighting control system will work with whatever lights your designer chooses, be they high-brightness outdoor floodlights, interior ceiling lights or the whole new gamut of low-voltage specialty lights. In short, you can integrate whatever you want into your overall lighting plan.

Keeping Things Cool … or Hot
Maintaining frosty surroundings in the summer and toasty interiors in the winter often involves far more than just the common thermostat. Today’s HVAC systems can treat different areas of your home very differently indeed. For example, you might want your bedroom at 68 degrees Fahrenheit during the day but 63 F or even lower when you’re sleeping. At the same time, you may feel that 72 F makes more sense for younger people’s rooms. Much the same is true with air conditioning. It makes little sense to cool the entire house if you plan to spend the entire evening enjoying a movie marathon in your theater room and no one else is at home.

HVAC contractors say that each home area that may benefit from different temperature requirements constitutes a zone. They design the heating and cooling system accordingly. How do you adjust these different zones? First, you have to know what’s happening in each of them—how cool the bedrooms are, how warm the den is, etc. That requires in each zone something called a communicating thermostat.
 
These talking thermometers, if you will, are almost identical to the conventional round thermostats most of us know from our youth. The only difference is an extra wire that relays information to an HVAC subsystem controller. The HVAC controller monitors information from all the zone thermostats and adjusts heat, air conditioning and humidity levels according to preset preferences. In other words, it works in a manner very similar to the lighting subsystem controller we discussed earlier. And of course, any touchscreen or keypad connected to your central controller can operate the thermostat.

A Failure to Communicate? Not Here.
Paraphrasing Strother Martin’s famous line from Cool Hand Luke allows us to end this tour of the behind-the-walls possibilities with a short reminder that today’s technology allows you not only to run your home more efficiently, more quickly and more precisely than ever before, but also to do so from a phone (regular or cell), or from any computer or personal digital assistant equipped with Internet access.

Although most automation systems are controlled through wall-mounted keypads, a touchscreen such as Crestron’s TPMC-10 (right) provides the ultimate in convenience. Lighting control systems can be augmented with motorized window treatments like these from Lutron (left). (Click images to enlarge)

When you consider the number of times you have asked yourself while on a trip, “Did I set the alarm and turn down the heat?”, the added convenience quickly becomes essential. And the advantages of home automation are not limited to your primary home. That’s right: You can “turn on” your summer cottage from the road even before you get there. Or make sure your ski retreat provides just the right amount of welcoming warmth when you walk in the front door.
 
Regardless of what technologies you choose to use, you will certainly enjoy a more comfortable lifestyle. Does this wonderful picture have a downside? It may, as we have yet to find an electronically activated wine steward. Sorry. But we have a hunch someone’s working on one right now.

Your Next Steps
By now, you may be a bit overwhelmed. That is the excitement—and the challenge—of keeping on top of the newest and most enjoyable electronic developments. However, you can get a good head start on reaching your dreams by keeping a few pointers in mind:
Define your goals. What do you want? Why do you want it? What does your family want? What real benefit will each of these “wants” bring?

Evaluate the possibilities. You will probably need some help here, but don’t worry. The choices are so wide and the technology so complex that a good dealer/installer will help you simplify and organize your want list. Remember, they have done this before. If your dealer/installer is a member of the Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association (CEDIA), you are in very good hands indeed. Both groups provide extensive education programs so their members are up-to-date on all the latest developments.

Communicate with your partners. It makes no difference if a “partner” is a spouse, a significant other, an interior designer or the dealer/installer you feel comfortable working with. Make sure they understand you and you understand them. Communication takes some work on both sides of the conversation. Do it. You will realize the advantage almost immediately.