| ??? 03/30/05 19:11 Modified: 03/30/05 19:11 Read: times |
#90710 - Existing commercial products Responding to: ???'s previous message |
Geert Vancompernolle said:
The same for the lights: I want to have control over all the lights. Some places in the house will even have the possibility to be dimmed, to have special 'moods' (meaning defining groups of lights that will be activated, depending on the 'mood' selected).
For instance: when watching the television, other lights with other intensity will be activated compared to the lights that will be activated when having visitors for a dinner. I also want to have the possibility to switch on the lights automatically, when it's becoming dark outside, etc. etc,... The only restriction should be my own creativity, but I want to foresee the neccesary 'hardware' or 'infrastructure' to be able to control all this. It sounds like you are working on quite a large home automation project! Have you considered using any commercial home automation solutions? There is an incredible array of products out there that do the types of things you want to do. For example, the Grafik Eye system from Lutron is an excellent architectural lighting control system whose main objective is to give you easy access to various preset lighting configurations (Lutron calls these "scenes"; you call them "moods"). One thing that is nice with this system is that you can get different power handling modules for the different types of loads you have. And, if in the end you still are not satisfied with the level of control that the system offers, you can add an RS-232 interface and control your loads in an arbitrary fashion with whatever you choose, whether something as simple as an 8051 or as elaborate as a large touch LCD panel. This is just one example; there are lots of other companies that make products that are useful for home automation, including Crestron and AMX. There is nothing wrong with what you are doing, but you might be able to avoid reinventing the wheel for at least some of what you are trying to accomplish. --Sasha Jevtic |
