Smart Home Automation Systems with x10 controllers

Archive for the ‘Shack Home Blog’ Category

Not only in the USA does Home Automation becomes popular, also in Europe this phenomenon is taking shape. Here Home Automation is called Domotica. Derived from the word Domus which means home, and the word Telematica, the term used for the fusion of telecommunication and informatica (information technology).

Since the industrial revolution people are seeking for more automated machinery and Domotica is seen as the next step in this trend. After automating factories, house appliances took over the domestic work and now Domotica is automating these same house appliances and connects them together. It’s the next step in a world where life become more convenient and automation frees up time for leisure and pleasure.

In a Domotica house, communication, relaxation and caring tasks are made easier by electrical apparatus and information networks.

A definition used nowadays for Domotica is:
Domotica includes all the apparatus and infrastructure in and around a house, which uses electronic information to measure, program and drive functions for the benefit of its inhabitants.

In this way Domotica adds value to the daily life by contributing in an effective way to pleasure and the value and sustainability of living.

Europe defines 7 categories in its Domotica domain:

Caring,
This can be done by turning on and off lights automatically.

Communication,
With remote control of appliances from a smart phone or an remote internet connection.

Working,
In the form of teleworking or tele shopping.

Relaxation,
With on demand audiovisual systems in each room at each time of the day.

Comfort,
With automated heating systems for the perfect temperature every moment of the day.

Energy saving,
By use night electricity and closing or opening curtains when external heating has to enter or kept out of the house.

Buildings,
In the form of safety and alarm systems to give a worry free life.

That some people in Europe take Domotica serious is clearly observed on the bwired website. Here you can not only monitor the house’s water consumption or energy use. But this family gives you a peak trough their security camera, let you monitor their answer machine and even shows you the data collected on their personal scale.

On a more serious note, this family runs their washing machine at 10 pm to make full use of the night / weekend rate available in their country. On a less serious note, they drink their last coffee at 9 pm according to customs….

Of course you don’t have to go to this extend to automate your house. And of course there is no reason to share all this information with the world. It is however nice to see that Home Automation is not just confined to the USA, but is also spreading in the form of Domotica in the rest of the world.

Sun sun sun. Using the free energy of the sun is not a bad idea. Many states offer good rebate programs when installing solar panels on your roof. But what are solar panels actually, how do they work.

A solar panel is a packaged interconnected assembly of solar cells and to understand the working of a solar panel, man has to understand the working of an individual solar cell.

Another name for a solar cell is a photovoltaic cell (PV-cell), with photo meaning light and voltaic meaning electricity. The name points to the capability of the cell to convert light directly into electricity.

The main material of a PV-cell is doped silicon.

An atom of silicon has 14 electrons, two in the inner shell, eight in the middle shell, and 4 in the outer shell. The outer shell has 4 places left empty, which in the crystalline form are filled with electrons shared with four neighbor atoms. This means there are no free electrons in crystalline silicon, making it a very poor conductor. If the silicon is doped with for example phosphorous, which has 5 electrons, one free electron is introduced in the system. A little energy from the sun is needed to knock this “extra” electron free, and a free carrier is created.

Silicon doped with phosphorous is called N-type silicon, because of the extra free electron. Silicon doped with boron, which has 3 electrons in its outer shell, is called P-type silicon for its extra free opening. When putting the P-type and the N-type silicon structures together things get interesting. A free electron on the N-side will try to fill an empty hole on the P-side. As more holes will be filled crossing the junction will become harder for the free electron and eventually equilibrium will be reached. In other words, a diode is created with a voltage across its junction.

Sunlight photons will disrupt this equilibrium by breaking apart electron-hole pairs. The extra freed electrons will start traveling across the diode junction and create an electrical current. With an electrical voltage and an electrical current across the junction, we now have electrical power.

Adding metal conductors on both sides of the diode, a solar cell is created. Connecting several solar cells together and cover them with a glass plate finish up the design for a solar panel. Power now can be drawn from the system to be used in your house.

To calculate the amount of solar panel area needed to power your house, takes several variables into account. The amount of energy needed, the insolation in your area, your roof angle and orientation and the efficiency of the solar panels you are looking at. A good rule of thumb is to calculate your average daily usage of electricity and multiply it my 0.25. This number gives you a rough estimation of the number and size of solar panels you need in kWh.

With prices dropping still every day, solar panels should take over our energy resources soon.

Yes, it is not a bad idea to put a solar panel on your roof when living in a sunny area. There was however a reason to centralize our energy sources and distribute it from central points across the country, cost! Have many centralized energy generating sources become polluting processes though; there is one facility in the USA approaching it from the renewable energy perspective.

The largest solar energy facility in the world is the Solar Energy Generation System (SEGS), located in the California Mojave Desert. On a bright sunny day the average insolation of the earth is about 250 watts per square meter (W/m2). Here in the South of California, with 340 days of sunshine, the insolation is among the highest in the world and average out on 310 W/m2.

The nine SEGS installations use parabolic mirrors shaped like a half pipe to collect the sun energy. A normal aluminum based mirror reflects about 70% of the light, but with special coating the mirrors used at the SEGS can reflect up to 95% of the light. Have some of the first NASA Rovers on Mars run out of power due to dust on their solar panels, the SEGS mirrors have an automatic cleaning system build in.

The SEGS exists of about 936,384 mirrors (many break due to high winds in the area) on more than 1,600 acres of land which are tracking the sun when it moves across the sky. The mirrors reflect the sunlight to the center of the parabolic where a tube filled with synthetic oil is situated. By directing the light from the bigger reflector onto the 75 times smaller central tube, the oil inside the tube heats up to about 750F. The heated oil is transferred to a central point where it is used to heat up water. The water in its turn powers the Rankine cycle steam turbines. By using only water at the turbine location and oil for the rest of the system, the pressure in the transportation tubes from the mirrors to the turbine can be kept much lower.

The Rankine cycle describes a model of steam operated heat engine. The rejection in the condenser is isobaric and can be broken down in 4 steps:

1. The water in the turbines is pumped to high pressure, which doesn’t take much energy, because the water is in its liquid state.
2. The pressurized water is then heated at constant pressure into a dry saturated vapor.
3. The vapor expands trough a turbine and generates the power.
4. The now wet vapor is condensed again at a constant pressure to become the saturated liquid it started the process in.

Together the nine installations generate a total power of 75 MW. Next time you are standing in the big traffic jam Kramer Junction can be, look at the SEGS facility and think happy thoughts; free energy!

The whole Home Automation System is based around one main apparatus, the central controller. Via this system all the Smart Home devices are controlled. Most controllers use about 10W of power under normal operation, that is only 0.24 kWh for a full day of operation. This amount will be easily saved by the energy saving capabilities of the Home Automation System. Installation is only a matter of plug-and-play and can be done by any of us. It is important to do some research before buying this important central device. It will determine your whole system and all the features and benefits it can supply you with.

If you are building a new house, this is the time to think of your Home Automation System. Where to install your build in control panels, where to mount your build in smart outlets. Make drawings and discuss them with your contractor and explain your desires.

When you already have a house, it is still not a bad idea to make a plan. What are the features you want? Which rooms will be involved? Which systems do you want to be automated? What is your budget? This will help you to make your research for the right components a bit more structured.

To following items are some things you want to concern in your research:

1. Do you want a standalone controller or do you want to control your system via your computer?

2. Check if the controller communicates via the slow RS-232 protocol or the much faster USB protocol.

3. Do you want only local control for your Home Automation System (from within the house) or also remote control (via a smart phone, iPad or remote computer)?

4. Do you want your system to communicate via Wi-Fi to all your automated devices, via the electrical network or both?

5. What are the features you want now and in the future to be automated? Is the brand you choose able to provide all the hardware you need?

6. Think of an extra touch screen to control your Home Automation System by every member of your household. A single push of a button can be even taught to the youngest among us. There are build-in units or table top units available on the market.

Some companies include a touch screen interface with their controller. Check for deals.

7. Check for starter packages, this will help to ease you into the whole automation process a bit more relaxed.

Home Automation can get very exciting, don’t get over confident though. It can get quickly very overwhelming also. Do your research, take your time, make a plan, stick to it, and start simple. Automated lights are the easiest to start with and give you immediately that big energy saving and comfort level you were looking for. Soon you will get confident with the system and can add more features. And before you know, your house is turned into a full automated home.

Energy
In the modern world, energy is delivered to each household in the form of electricity. The definition of electricity is according to the dictionary: electrical current used or regarded as a source of power. The unit of energy is Joule (J).

The definition of power is: the rate in which energy is generated or consumed. The unit of power is Watt (W), which is joules per second (J/s).

Combined together we can now rewrite the unit of energy: Joule = Watt second (Ws). Taking into account the general consumption of an average household, electrical companies use kilo watt hour (kWh) for residential electrical bills.

In practice, a 1000W heater running for 30 minutes will use 0.5 kWh and a 60W lamp burning for 5 hrs. will use 0.3 kWh.

Energy sources
Electricity has been generated at central stations since 1881. Today the USA mostly relies on coal and natural gas for its electrical needs. A smaller part comes from nuclear and hydroelectric, and only very small amounts from renewable sources like solar energy, wind generators, geothermal sources, and tidal harnesses.

Distribution
The main consumers of electricity are of course industries. With rising energy prices in the last couple of years, major cut backs have been made. More has to be done, and that is up to all of us, us the employees. It is an easy thing to turn off that computer leaving for home. It might be a little harder, but why not develop that new product process to a more energy saving way of producing. It saves the company some money and gives our environment a break.

Residential energy use still accounts for a fifth of all the energy used. Here the individual can make a quick difference. There will be always people around telling that small steps don’t have any effect. Don’t get encouraged. If everybody makes that small step, it will add up in the end. We can make a difference together.

Storage
Still a main flaw in the electrical network is the lack of a storage capability. Demands for electricity fluctuates throughout the day and electrical companies can only react in a binary way; an extra generator is turned on, or turned off. There are many small start-up companies focusing on generating renewable energy, but the main breakthrough will come from companies concentrating on energy storage. Smaller batteries with higher capacity and other still to be developed technologies will send us more comfortable into the 22nd century.

Night rates
With a low demand for electricity at night, energy companies can offer electricity at a lower rate. With the residential Day-Night service, the nighttime service rate is about two-thirds the cost of the daytime service rate. However, there is a higher monthly meter charge, and the cost per kWh for electricity used during the daytime service hours might be higher than normal. Therefore, it’s important to review your use of electricity carefully before switching to Day-Night service rate. Check with your local energy provider about their Day-Night service package.

Home Automation System
With a Home Automation System, many appliances can be programmed to run during the lower night rate, the washing machine, the AC, the electrical water heater, and the dish washer. No more delay calculations, but a simple close of the door of your appliance and things will be taken care of for you. Maybe can you can save some energy and money in an easier way than you think.

Most of us don’t live in Minneapolis, where the city government in cooperation with USI Wireless offers free Wi-Fi throughout the city. We are the ones that drive around, with our laptop or iPad-WiFi sitting in the passenger’s seat, looking for an unlocked Wi-Fi signal. And don’t tell me you never have an expensive coffee at the Starbucks only to use their free Wi-Fi.

A Mobile Hotspot Device is our solution. Let me explain:

Wi-Fi
In 1999 the non-profit Wi-Fi Alliance was formed to promote wireless local-area-network technology and to establish a standard for interoperability between technologies. As of today, 375 companies have joined the Alliance and are allowed to carry the Wi-Fi logo after passing the certification process.

A Wi-Fi router (sometimes written as Wireless Fidelity router, but officially Wi-Fi stands for nothing) plugged into an internet access point sends out a Wi-Fi signal (2.4 GHz radio frequency), allowing devices like personal computers, video game consoles, smartphones, or digital audio players to connect wireless to the internet. Routers have spread widely and can be found in homes, businesses, and more and more in public areas. With coverage of only 120 feet, this is still way too spotty for our “always being connected” needs.

Cellphone network
The United Nations now controls, via its agency the International Telecommunication Union, the telecommunication infrastructure and establishes worldwide standards. The current (since 2004) 3^rd Generation standard for mobile telephony is called “International Mobile Telecommunications-2000”, better known simply as 3G.

Large cellphone towers transmit and receive radio waves (3G: 806-960/1710-2025/2110-2200 MHz | 4G: 2500-2690 MHz radio frequency), used by cellphones and smartphones within 2.3 miles to connect to the phone network. The coverage is almost nationwide and is still expanding every day. The difference between the public Wi-Fi coverage and the cellphone network coverage is striking. Here the maps for AT&T’s network.

Mobile Hotspot Device
With a Mobile Hotspot Device it is possible to connect any Wi-Fi device to the cellphone network. The hotspot is a tiny device which fits easily in your pocket or bag. The Mobile Hotspot Device connects local Wi-Fi devices to the cellphone network. An example of a mobile hotspot is Novatel’s MiFi – 3G.

Several cellphone providers offer the MiFi: AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, and Virgin Mobile. The MiFi is tiny, 3.50” x 2.32: x 0.35”, and just weights over 2 oz. With the push of a button the device is turned on and up to 5 Wi-Fi devices can connect to the hotspot. MiFi: my internet, my applications, my content, my way.

So for whom will this be a solution?
*The first group: everybody traveling with a laptop and who wants to connect to the 3G network.
*The second group: iPad+Wi-Fi owners who want to connect to the 3G network.
*With Sprint turning on its 4G WiMAX service in the San Francisco Bay Area, and China running 4G network trials in 6 cities (Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Xiamen) a third group of people is forming: people who want to be up to date. The Sprint’s Novatel MiFi – 3G/4G, is announced for February 2011, to provide 4G connectivity. When G5, G6 etc. are coming out, simply replace your MiFi and the latest connectivity technology for all your devices is guaranteed.

Hawking is a relative newcomer to the Home Automation System market. One system is worth mentioning though: The Hawkings Home Remote Pro – Home Automation Gateway. A comprehensive system that is capable of remote monitoring, remote controlling and remote securing your home.

Via the installed gateway the Home Automation System can be accessed remotely via a web browser or via a cell phone. This suddenly opens up all kind of extra features for your Home Automation System.

Remote monitoring
With installed security video cameras a peek in your house from all over the world becomes reality. Keeping an eye out on the kids, or the pet, right from your cell phone or your secured webpage online gives you the comfort you need.

Remote control
You can log in your Home Automation System straight from work, and set the security system with a new access code for your early arriving friends. After a specified set time the code will be deactivated again if you like.

Remote secure
Your Home Automation System can act as a notifier and send you an alerts on your cell phone when a security breach occurs.

The Hawkings Home Remote Pro Home Automation Gateway comes with a small service fee. The Basic Level service comes for free.

Going Green is easier than most of us think. The initial step to take is to look into the facts. Seeing the numbers in front of you might drag you over that hump and start changing your daily routines. Once you take that first step, everything else falls in place like magic.

Let’s talk about some numbers and actions one can take, to save you some hard earned money and spare resources we all are meant to share:

1) To see the impact of all your consumption and the impact of your reducing effort, install an Egauge Energy Monitor. The eGauge can be connected directly to your local area network and the collected data exported to a spread-sheet program such as Excel. In this way your daily energy usage is displayed right on your screen and a starting point for your next actions.

2) Unplug your chargers and turn off your appliances. Vampire electricity represents about 5% of U.S. residential electricity consumption (adding up to more than $3 billion in annual energy costs). A cell phone charger still consumes 0.26 W when left plugged in, without even being attached to a cell phone. A 42″ LCD screen television can even draw up to 34W in standby. All energy wasted and paid for. The solution is simple, use a power strip which can be turned off to avoid standby of your appliances.

3) Buy Energy Star labeled appliances. In 2006 energy star appliances saved American households about 14 billion dollars and they are eligible for tax write offs. The government has a site about the Energy Star Label.

4) Follow Europe’s lead, and change your light bulbs. Since September 2009 there is a restriction on the sales of incandescent bulbs and the new compact fluorescent lamps are the only ones found on the shelf today. Yes, instead of €0.70 for a bulb, the cost for the new lamp can be up to €10. With 80% less energy consuming and a longer lifetime, the new bulb will pay off about €50 a year nevertheless when used for all lights in your household. An investment for now, but worth it in the long run.

5) Install an automatic sensor on your water taps. No more dripping, no more spilling. On average, the return on investment for sensor devices is about 30 percent. The payback period is about 3-6 months.

Let the numbers speak for themselves and start taking action right now!

As with everything, starting simple is the best way to tackle a project. For Home Automation this would be starting with one of the most basic automation system, a Smart Home Light System.

The Smart Home Light System is an investment which will pay back for itself over time. It will detect motion in a room and turns on/off the lights. This will save energy and make your life a little more easy and comfortable and even smarter!

How it works
A motion sensor is a passive system that detects infrared energy. Humans have a skin temperature of 93 F (34 C), which emits waves in the infrared spectrum (8-10 micrometers). The motion sensor detects these waves and sends a signal to turn on the lights.

The detector is set to react to rapid changes of infrared energy. This avoids the system to react to heaters turning on, or electrical blankets warming up. In this way only a person walking into the motion detectors field of view, will set the system in working and turns on the light.

The trouble
Picture yourself in bed, reading a book. Not much motion is going on and the Smart Home Light System will turn off the lights automatically after a while. You find yourself waving to the dark ghosts in your room, to turn the lights back on. This is a real problem and the Smart Home Lighting Systems fails in those instances.

The best alternative is to switch off the light in a series of dim downs. As the light dims, you find yourself still waving to turn the light back on to full power, but this time at least not in the total dark.

One alternative that is being suggested is to let the Smart Home Light System detect when an object, in this case the human, is on stage and only turns the light on. The person determines the length of the stay and turns the light off upon exit. No more waving, but the main advantages is lost in this way. Automatically turning off lights in rooms not occupied. I would not call it a fully automated lighting system either.

Another alternative is to pre-set a specific time before the Smart Home Light System will turn of the lights again. Very workable for a garage, but not a very desirable solution for the bedroom or kitchen.

The near future
Instead of infrared based motion detectors, full optical detection systems (cameras) can be used. A simple version (used in detecting cars waiting for a traffic light) is based on the differences between the image of an empty room and an occupied room. No object can however be moved in the room, without recalibrating the system. A better but still to expansive optical detection system would be a system used in the Xbox-Kinect. This system has a 3 dimensional face recognition feature inside, which would be a little bit over the top for our Smart Home Light System.

An extra benefit!
Connecting your regular lights with the Home Automation System now turns them into dim lights.

Further exploring
The one leading company in the Smart Home Light System is Phillips. In April 2010, the special program, Philips Dynalite Dimension was launched and gave the Smart Home Automation a considerable push forward.

X10
Home Automation can be as simple as to group controls (think of when opening the garage door, the lights in the house switch on), and can get as complex as remote control over all appliances in your house (think of turning on the heater on the way home, or even better the coffee machine).

What all the systems will have in common is a language to communicate between each individual appliance in the system. A language originally coined by a Scottish company called Pico Electronics in 1975 is X10. Even nowadays X10 is still the most common used “system” for Home Automation.

Functionality
The communication is done over ordinary electrical wiring. But there is also a radio protocol defined (this however needs some additional hardware). The X10 signal consists out of little bursts of radio waves representing a digital signal.
The protocol consists out of 3 segments: a house code, a unit code, a command code.
The 4 bit house code (A to P) can divide your house in 16 areas (the kitchen, the office or all lights, all heaters).
The 4 bit unit code (1 to 16) can address 16 different appliances within a house code.
This makes a total amount of 256 (16 house codes x 16 unit codes) possible addresses (read appliances).
The command codes are handling the message send to the address.

So for example:
The garden has house code B.
The lights in the garden have unit code 3.
The sprinklers in the garden have unit code 5.

Sending the code: B3-off followed by B5-on, will turn off the lights in the garden, before turning on the sprinklers. All from within the comfort of your house. It gets even better when programming the system with a routine. At 7pm / B3-on, at 9pm / B3-off and B5-on, at 9:30 pm / B5-off and B3-on, creates an automatic garden watering program without exposing the turned on lights to water.

Phase Couplers
The X10 system operate seamlessly on most devices but runs into issues with high voltage appliances like washer, a dryer and the electric stove. This can however be solved by introducing additional phase couplers to distribute the X10 signal between the different phases.

Repeaters
Like any other signal the X10 signal incurs loss over a distance greater than 240 feet of electrical wiring and that includes the junction boxes. For houses larger than 2000 square feet, this is not an uncommon situation. In this case a repeater system which boost the X10 signal is needed.

Further recommendation
With this brief introduction into X10 for Home Automation we have provided you with a starting point in getting your “Do it yourself automation project” on the roll. Here is an easy to understand home automation book to get your projects on the way.