What is Residential Automation and Networking? Today's modern home is more comfortable, convenient, secure and energy efficient than ever. It is wired for networking, with all of the latest lighting, temperature control, security and whole-house entertainment conveniences. It is an automated and connected home. Automation improves your lifestyle Residential automation is all about adding comfort, convenience, security, energy savings, and entertainment to your lifestyle. It is the remote and automatic control of your home's systems such as lighting, appliances, heating and air conditioning, entertainment components, security system, communications, irrigation system, pool and spa, and all of the other systems in your home. These systems become easier to use, and any level of automation can be installed. It can be as simple as automatic control of outside security lights that come on at dusk and shut off at dawn. Or your home's exterior and interior lights, and your stereo, can all come on for you when you signal your garage door to open, so you don't ever have to enter a dark house again. Or it can be as sophisticated as having all of the systems in your entire home automatically controlled according to time of day, day of week, or personal presence in a room… and with voice control, too. Remote and automatic lighting control, heating and air conditioning control, and drapery control are very popular tools for realizing significant energy savings as well as convenience. And of course security is also a part of automating your home. Networking gets your home "connected" Today's electronic equipment and services are vastly different from those offered 10 years ago. With the introduction of home offices, computers, home theaters, digital satellite dishes, the Internet and similar types of equipment and services, the conventional wiring in a home has become overloaded and outdated. The solution is to "connect" your home in a network with modern structured wiring. A connected, or networked, home is a home that is connected from room to room and to the world outside. It gives you the control to integrate multiple home systems such as communications, computers, audio and video entertainment, security, lighting controls, utilities and environmental controls. By networking your home with structured wiring, you can maximize your quality of life, experience the best that technology has to offer, and fully enjoy your home. Most homes have only conventional wiring. But modern technology demands a structured wiring system to provide the electronic foundation necessary to ensure that your family can be connected to today's services, and be prepared for the new technologies of tomorrow. There is a big difference in wiring. To illustrate, think of the wiring in your home as a pipeline for information. Conventional wiring has the data capacity of a squirt gun. By comparison, structured wiring, using Cat5 cables, has the capacity of a fire hose. Structured wiring transmits more information, faster. Conventional wiring consists of 1 or 2 twisted pairs of wires and is adequate for basic voice, fax or data communications. Structured wiring is more advanced, and can handle sophisticated video and data signals from computers, digital satellite, high-speed Internet, digital phones and digital TV's. And provide you the security of being able to enjoy technologies of the future. Why do you want an automated home? Residential automation is all about adding comfort, convenience, security, and energy savings to your home. Why walk into a dark home when your exterior and interior lights can automatically come on when you press your remote garage door opener? Why come into a hot or cold home when you can enjoy the comfort of your home anticipating your arrival and adjusting the temperature to suit you… just before you arrive? An automated home is about the convenience of saving your time and effort by having your home automatically do routine functions such as watering your grass (but only if it has not rained recently), or turning off all lights, setting the thermostat to economy mode and arming the security system when you retire for the night. It's about enjoying home theater time by having the lights dim, curtains close, TV and DVD player turn on, phone mute and popcorn popper start... all with the touch of just one button. Home automation is about the security you have knowing that you can look in on your home remotely from anywhere in the world, or that your home will phone you if anything is amiss, or that a fire will alert your home to wake you, shut down the gas and ventilation system, turn on a lighting path for your escape, and automatically phone the fire department. And it's about the energy savings you will enjoy by assigning your home the responsibility of regulating the operation of lights, water heater, HVAC system, entertainment components, appliances and irrigation system so these devices are on only when needed. The benefits of an automated home are only limited by your imagination. Why do you want a connected home? Today's new electronics and services need to be managed. Connected homes integrate entertainment, communications, automation and security systems together to provide you with more convenient and efficient control of your home environment. By networking your home, you can fully maximize the capabilities of current home products and systems, and help them run more efficiently together. Enjoy high-speed Internet access from any room in the house or teleconference from your kitchen while making breakfast for your family. Program the lights to create a "lived-in" look and check the security system via telephone while you're away on vacation. Even answer the door through the phone or monitor the nursery through your PC or TV. Not only do you need structured wiring for your connected home to control and share information from today's electronics and services, but also to provide you with the peace of mind that comes from knowing that your home network will accommodate future technologies and equipment. It's called FutureProofing. And you need it now to integrate computers and computer networks, printers, cable and satellite TV, telephones, faxes, modems, ISDN, DSL, the Internet, cable modems, video conferencing, sound and security systems, and whatever the future might bring. All these electronics and services can be easily managed from one central location in a structured wiring distribution panel. You want a connected home to add security, peace of mind, energy savings and convenience to day-do-day activities. Consider just some of the many applications of structured wiring: Video-on-demand Interactive video games Intelligent lighting systems Security alert Remote dial-in Simultaneous Web surfing Internet access Integrated phone systems Home office Interactive audio Digital TV Heating/cooling control Remote metering Child monitoring Electronic shopping Networked PC's Electronic banking And much more ... Home networking also increases the value of your home because it is equipped to operate today's digital electronics and will keep pace with ever-changing technology. For these and many other reasons, residential networking is a "must" for your home. What can a connected and automated home do for you? Your home can be as smart, fun and safe as you want it to be. Networking and automation is about making your life easier and simpler, and creating more time for you to enjoy life. There are literally hundreds of comfort, convenience, safety, entertainment, and energy saving possibilities, limited only by your imagination. Here is a one scenario to illustrate some of the many options you have. Just imagine… Your routine is suddenly much more convenient with an automated home. As you leave your home in the morning, you push one button by the front door and all lights and appliances are turned off, the stereo or TV shuts down, the draperies close, hair curlers turn off, the thermostat and water heater are set to economy mode, and your security system knows to enable in two minutes. Your home has just automatically dialed your secretary to let her know you are on your way. While driving to your office, you remember you wanted to water the yard one extra time this week, so you dial your home to turn on the sprinkler system for fifteen minutes. After lunch, you'll go on-line at your desk to view your back yard to be sure your dog is keeping out of mischief. Shortly after 3:00pm, you receive an automatic phone call from your home notifying you that your child is safely home from school. Then, on your drive home you decide a Jacuzzi soak would be in order, so a quick cell phone call to your home has the tub hot and steamy for you upon your arrival. Later that evening, after settling down in your favorite easy chair, you push a single button, and watch as the lights are dimmed, curtains drawn, projection screen unfurled, video projector and DVD player enables, phone mutes and the popcorn popper fires up. It's movie time! And you know that your connected home is also capable of sending the same DVD movie signal to any of the other TV's or computers in your home. While you are watching, you hear a noise in the front yard, so you click channel 84 on your viewing screen to bring up a security video image of a stray dog running by your front door. After the movie, you settle down for your nights repose, and again one button push puts your home to work for you by turning off all interior lights, turning on security lights, shutting down all entertainment components and appliances, setting the thermostat and water heater to economy mode, and enabling the security system. And you rest comfortably knowing that in the event of a fire or other emergency, you and your children are safe. Your home knows what to do… automatically. Of course there are many, many other benefits to a networked and automated home. It is limited only by your imagination. Home Controls is standing by to help you make your home an automated and connected home for the comfort, convenience, safety, energy savings and entertainment of your family.