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The Ultimate Universal Remote Control
TheMayor writes: "CNN.com has a story about how researchers at Maya Designs, Inc. and Carnegie-Mellon are trying to come up with a remote control that controls everything in your house. From the TV to the blender, these guys want to make an all-in-one piece to turn everything on and off. Now I wonder if I could remotely flush my toliet?"
The idea is to have a 12 volts 2 coil latching-relay on each lighting circuit. Since they are latching relays (one coil to turn it on, and the other to turn it off), they can be controlled by as many momentary SPDT switches as needed; you can also have as many "master consoles" as you need which consist of two rotary dials, one to turn on and the other to turn off the light.
Some relays even offer a low-voltage "indicator" line, so the master console can have pilot lights to indicate which lights are on.
I am surprised that this system is not more widespread in fancy homes, as I remember going to a school more than 30 years ago that had it's lighting controlled by that system.
What's neat about it is that the big expensive high-votage wire (which has to be installed by a qualified electrician) only goes from the breaker panel to the light fixtures, instead of snaking through the walls to the light switches (and don't get me stated on the 3 or 4 way switches!!!). As the control is done through low-voltage, light switches can be extremely small and unobtrusive.
Of course, it goes without saying that interfacing those to a computer would be an outright breeze...
Devices already exist to do this, without their kludgery of needing a laptop to actually do the IR transmission.
The Philips Pronto is the most popular of the fully programmable universal remote. You can control thousands of devices with the Pronto, including X10 modules to control lamps, fans, and other appliances.
It has a PC application to set set the GUI for controlling all the devices. It comes pre-programmed for many devices, and just about any other can be downloaded from various internet sites or manufacturers.
The GUI to program it has a bit of a learning curve. If they wanted to make that process even easier, they could have saved a lot of effort by just making a better config GUI, rather than re-inventing the hardware.
Another option, if you really want a PDA as your remote is the Nevo software for the new iPaq, which includes a more powerful IR transmitter.
Yes and no. There are multiple competeting "standards", but very few are actually open, or actually have broad industry support. Crap like X-10 is a dead end as it's extremely limited, prone to interfearence, unreliable, has no security, etc. Also, the "smart home" technology is NOT going to cost you "hundreds of thousands." If you DID end up with an obsolete system, you can replace it. All that X-10 crap comes out pretty quick.
Lonworks on the other hand is VERY reliable, secure, OPEN, mature, works over many media such as RF, IR, twisted pair, power line, fiber, etc. Lonworks nodes are peers. Any node can control / communicate with any other node. Each node has a global unique ID much like an ethernet card's MAC address (except that it's longer.) The TYPES on control is virtually unlimited - it's not just "On, Off, Dim up and down." It's used in commercial and industrial environments as well as residential, so it's not going away anytime soon. Every house in Italy is being wired together with Lonworks.
So it depends on what technology you go with. You can go with a dedicated residential nitch technology, or something more universal with massive industry support. THAT will define whether you have a white elephant that becomes obsolete in a couple years or not.
I think you are overestimating the maintenance issues. Solid state electronics are quite reliable. Look at your clock radio. I've had the same one for 20 years or so. They just last forever. Node cost is something like $20, so it's similar. Your dishwasher, refrig, or furnace will probably die from a mechanical failure before electronic failure. A smart appliance could actually end up saving you money because it may be able to tell when a part is close to failure before it causes a domino type cascading failure in other parts. Not to mention that it can call your repair service for you when it DOES fail.
Large companies can take advantage of cheaper power rates at different times of the day. With a smart meter and smart home, you will be able to do so as well. We wouldn't HAVE a power issue in california if we could manage even just half our electical usage. In a situation where you have variable rates depending on the current grid load / market, a smart home investment could pay for itself in just a few years.
This is a technology I've been keeping an eye on for over 10 years. It's solid at this point.
Have they considered using Crestron panels to control everything?
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
The omniremote module also can optionally come with a blue LED for use as a flashlight. It's pretty damn cool stuff. I have one, and if my visor screen weren't cracked I'd use it nonstop.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"