Smart Home Hacks: 100 Tools & Tips for Automating Your House
Book Review
Smart Home Hacks:
100 Tools & Tips for Automating Your House
Book Review
 By
Dale Farris, Vice PresidentGolden Triangle PC Club December 2004 General Overview So much of what is commonplace today was once considered impossible, or at least wishful thinking. Laser beams in the operating room, cars with built-in guidance systems, cell phones with email access. There's just no getting around the fact that technology always has, and always will be, very cool. But technology isn't only cool; it's also very smart. That's why one of the hottest technological trends nowadays is the creation of smart homes. At an increasing rate, people are turning their homes into state-of-the-art machines, complete with more switches, sensors, and actuators than you can shake a stick at. Whether you want to equip your home with motion detectors for added security, install computer-controlled lights for optimum convenience, or even mount an in-home web cam or two purely for entertainment, the world is now your oyster. Ah, but like anything highly technical, creating a smart home is typically easier said than done. For generations, scientists and marketers have been promising flying cars, personal robots, and the automated home. Of these, only the automated home is within reach today. Thanks to the combination of inexpensive yet powerful computers, open source and scriptable software, and a 20-year old method of controlling everyday lights and appliances, you can now live in a home that would make any futurist proud. Thankfully, Smart Home Hacks takes the guesswork out of the process. Through a seemingly unending array of valuable tips, tools, and techniques, Smart Home Hacks explains in clear detail how to use Mac, Windows, or Linux to achieve the automated home of your dreams. In no time, you'll learn how to turn a loose collection of sensors and switches into a well-automated and well-functioning home no matter what your technical level may be. Smart Home Hacks covers a litany of stand-alone and integrated smart home solutions designed to enhance safety, comfort, and convenience in new and existing homes. Kitchens, bedrooms, home offices, living rooms, and even bathrooms are all candidates for smart automation and therefore are all addressed in Smart Home Hacks. Intelligently written by engineering guru and George Jetson wannabe, Gordon Meyer, Smart Home Hacks leaves no stone unturned. From what to purchase to how to use your remote control, it's the ultimate guide to understanding and implementing complete or partial home automation. Hacks Discussed in the Book Turn on lights automatically when you enter a room, when the sun sets, or only when these are needed Send reminders of important events to your cell phone, email account, or pager Alert everyone in the house with chimes or voice announcements Monitor the driveway, mailbox, refrigerator door, or litter box for activity Motorize your window blinds Automate your sprinkler system, tailor its schedule to the weekly forecast, and make it stop watering during rain storms Check for an empty home and see who is home while you are away Control your home from a web browser Table of Contents The 100 smart home hack tips are organized in seven (7) chapters, including the following: Ch 1: A Foot in the Front Door Ch 2: Office Ch 3: Kitchen and Bath Ch 4: Bedroom Ch 5: Garage and Yare Ch 6: Security Ch 7: Advanced Techniques Target Readers This is a fascinating book that is filled with 100 clever, important hacks for all of today's modern electronic home devices, as well as many devices that can now be controlled by a computer. The collection of advice, tips, tricks, warnings, and admonitions reflects the best wisdom in the significant new home electronics community. The essence of home automation is using specialized equipment that can control your lamps, appliances, heater, and air conditioning, and perhaps sense where in the house people are located. Every automation system is built upon these building blocks. Once these methods are in place, it's really not much of a stretch to have some actions performed automatically. For example, once you have the ability to detect when a person has left a room, turning off any lights that she might have left on is not much of a technical challenge. This book focuses almost exclusively on using X10-based home automation technology. Technically speaking, X10 is a power-line carrier (PLC) communications method. This means it sends signals using the electrical wiring in your home, not unlike Morse code. Your appliances, lights, and everything else you have plugged into your home's electrical system continue to work: X10 sneakily adds its signals onto the wires in a way that standard AC equipment does not notice. However, when you have equipment that is tuned to listen to X10 commands, that equipment can be controlled as if by magic, reacting to signals sent by you, your computer, or even other X10 devices. Time and technology has continued to advance, and X10 has gotten a lot better over the years since it first arrived on the market around 1978. Thanks to the ingenuity of smart hackers, many of whom have contributed to this book, and to companies that continue to advance new capabilities and reliability of X10, many X10 compatible products now are readily available on the market. X10 is much less expensive than other technologies, and it is more widely supported and available. You can also easily grow and expand your X10 system as you get more proficient with these devices. The author reminds readers that although the hacks in this book are described in X10 terms, you can easily apply these to any home automation system. The concept of sending commands to specific devices, telling these to turn on or off, is the same, regardless the underlying protocol that transmits the commands. Aside from some troubleshooting information that is specific to X10 implementation, the hacks are not inherently reliant completely on X10. Most of the hacks in the book are implemented using one of three different home automation programs: HomeSeer for Windows; Indigo for Macintosh; or XTension for Macintosh. Among enthusiasts, the term hack refers to a "quick and dirty" solution to a problem or a clever way to do something. The term hacker is very much a compliment, praising someone for being creative and having the technical chops to get things done. O'Reilly's important, successful Hacks series is an attempt to reclaim the word, document the ways people are hacking in a good way, and pass on the hacker ethic of creative participation to a new generation of hackers. Seeing how others approach systems and problems is often the quickest way to learn about a new technology. The material assumes some degree of comfort with electronics and electrical engineering, although you do not of course have to be an electrical engineer to perform the hacks. You will need to be comfortable with working with integrated circuits, electrical assembly, soldering wires, and dis-assembling electronic devices. Of course, you will also need to be comfortable with possibly ruining beyond repair the discussed device, if you fail to successfully complete the described hacks. This is a highly specialized book that specifically targets a unique audience, namely those confident in their skills and abilities to follow the excellent hacking instructions that are replete throughout this important book. Book Contents 400 pages; paperbound; acknowledgements; preface; tons of additional tips and warnings; code examples; figures; b/w photographs; tables; index; cover colophon Author Gordon Meyer About the Author Gordon Meyer (www.gordonmeyer.com) is a writer, ethnographer, and software engineer who specializes in tools for creating and displaying onscreen documentation. His house in Silicon Valley is fully automated and controlled by a talking computer that wakes his family in the morning, keeps an eye on the dog during the day, and alerts him to missed phone calls and package deliveries. Gordon's past includes seminal work in the sociology of computer hackers, several years of performing magic onstage and behind the counter of a magic shop, and helping to manage and nurture communities on the GEnie and eWorld online services. ISBN October 2004 - First Edition 0-596-00722-1 List Price $24.95 $36.95 CAN About O'Reilly Media O'Reilly Media is the premier information source for leading-edge computer technologies. The company's books, conferences, and web sites bring to light the knowledge of technology innovators. O'Reilly books, known for the animals on their covers, occupy a treasured place on the shelves of the developers building the next generation of software. O'Reilly conferences and summits bring alpha geeks and forward-thinking business leaders together to shape the revolutionary ideas that spark new industries. From the Internet to XML, open source, .NET, Java, and web services, O'Reilly puts technologies on the map. O'Reilly Media creates products that they
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