Moving from a small one-bedroom condo to a three bedroom house was a big jump. A year after the move, my wife and still have an empty living room. Our house was built in 1942, but in the 80’s and 90’s the previous owners added central air, re-finished the basement and added a nice sun room with the bay window. Overall it’s a pleasant mix of modern open space with old school quality craftsmanship–minus the plumbing.

Thinking back on my initial motivations for investing time and money into developing a smart home, I believe it was equal parts curiosity and desire for control over this sudden expansion of space.  I have used a Home Theater PC with Windows Media Center as my main entertainment system for TV and movies for many years in the condo, so I was already interested in using computers to control more than just Word and Excel.

The basement 'Man Room' with Vista Media Center and MControl

With the proper inputs and interfaces a computer should be able to dynamically control the environment of your house.

Goal

Other than for the pure sake of ‘geeking out,’ there are three core objectives that I hope to accomplish by adding home automation to my house.

First, I want to improve the efficiency of house to use less electricity.  That means collecting stats on energy usage and then training the house to only use energy when it has an impact on someone in the house.  For example, the computer will run the HVAC less when you’re actually out of the house and not just by what time it is.

Second, convenience. Many much wealthier new homes are incorporating the new technology because it makes life a little bit easier and more luxurious.  For example, when you begin to play a movie, the lights dim to improve the experience or your garden gets watered automatically everyday with an irrigation system.

Lastly, I want to prove that home automation can be affordable and not that out of reach of the average consumer.  Many custom builders are offerring services to renovate your house with a home automation, but this option is extremely expensive and invasive.  Using wireless technology like Z-Wave and Insteon, I can get the same result for a fraction of the price.

The Setup

I would need three elements to make this all work out: automation software, a USB controller, and interfaces for the things that I want to control. NOTE: This setup assumes I have an always on computer or server to run the software and USB controller.

The software: I eventually landed on Embedded Automation’s MControl.  This software supports multiple types of communications protocalls like X10, Insteon, and Z-Wave as well as maintaining and active support forum.  This software also has add-ins for Windows Home Server and Vista Media Center which were core elements that I wanted to take full advantage of.

USB controller: For the computer to talk to the interfaces I needed to pick a communications protocol and install a USB controller to talk to the devices I wanted to control.  I ended up picking Z-Wave because it offered two way communication–the device not only takes orders from the computer, but it can report which state it’s in as well (on, off, dimmed, etc.).  For this I picked the ThinkStick Z-Wave USB Adapter by ControlThink, which I highly recommend.

Controls: To start I wanted to get lighting elements installed for whenever we were out of town.  I also wanted to experiment with automatic lighting environments for the media room.  Another element to home automation is security and I purchased an IP camera to be controlled by MControl as well.

Result

Without getting too technical, here’s what I’ve been able to do so far with my home automation system that cost under $300 (eBay helped keep prices low).

Currently I have two zones: the family and dining room on the main floor and the basement, aka the man room.

Lighting:

• In the winter we get home after dark so I like the front light to be on when I get home.  MControl knows what time the sun sets and will turn on my front light right at dusk.
• The dining room has a scene for ‘Dinner’ which dims certain lights for a nice atmosphere.
• In the Man Room, my Home Theater PC (running Vista Media Center) will dim the front lights and turn off the rear lights when I start a movie.  If I stop or pause the movie, the lighting gets brighter in anticipation of someone getting up and moving around.  Lighting is returned to the dim state when movie is playing again. This application is my favorite so far.

Security: Using an IP camera with motion sensing I get an email sent to me whenever there is motion in a particular area.  To prevent this system from going off all the time, it is tied to when I’m out of the house.  Knock on wood, outside of testing I’ve never received an email.

Future Add-ons

If you have Compact Fluorescent Lighting (CFLs) in most rooms as I do there is one drawback to Z-Wave which is that wall lighting controls need at least a 40 Watt charge running through them to operate–CFLs generally consume less than 40 Watts.  One can get around this by adding Insteon technology, a competing communication system to Z-Wave that uses a combination of powerline and RF technology, but doesn’t have a minimum wattage.  Prices for components are comparable and both Z-Wave and Insteon controllers can run simultaneously with MControl on a WHS.  Insteon does however require a negative wire however and because my house was built before negative wires were common I will need to consult an electrician before I get this system.

After the lighting has been taken care of, the possibilities are endless.  Anything that has moving parts and is close to a power source can be automated and controlled: blinds can shut when the sun gets too bright, the garden and lawn can be watered on a schedule, and you can get an MMS when your security system is triggered with a video of what caused it.

Finally, installing a energy monitoring system like The Energy Detective (T.E.D.) will allow me to learn more about how my house is consuming energy so that I can tweak automation even more to save electricity.