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?"

Comments

Re:A better question:

[Pig Hogger]

If you're having it built, have low-voltage relays installed throughout the house. The whole procedure is extremely well-documented in the "Time-Life Home Handyman" series of books, more precisely the "Advanced Wiring" book.

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...