The smart home

[ians]

Yip I dropped down into the smart home hole ... man it is dark down here ... lots of windows to open and view how to videos ... you need to have a lot of patients and little expectations ... unless you have a gold mine to keep feeding technicians (@R1200 per hour for a call out ... seems the solar and smart home techs fall in the upper class bracket).

How wrong I was thinking smart homes have become simple easy affordable systems to use ... they are still expensive ... you can start with a cheap setup which has very limited options but as you expect more so the prices just to the R20-30k bracket ... then there is the DIY route ( the one I have taken) ... its needs to be something you enjoy doing and have tons of time to tinker ... you will need to keep up to date and make sure your wifi signal is always on ( there are options to keep it in house)

To hook up a simple wifi lamp ... easy peezie ... there is an app and remote ... start adding multiple lamps ... from differnet manufacturers and the challenge starts getting real.

I think its much like going to gym ... the more effort you put in the better the result ... but if you stop tinkering the system will eventully just fall apart.

lets see where this goes.

I want to be able to operate my entire home off one app. ... at the moment I am using smart life ... CBI ... IDS HYYP and IDmss.

I have no interest in opening and closing blinds and silly things like that ... I want to get my power backup ... security system ... lighting ... geyser ... gates and garage door all working together ... with the added bonus of knowing the status of the each device with remote control from an app.

With water becoming just as bigger challenge as electricity outages ... control over the water system storage and filtration will be an added bonus.

The most import part of the system ... everything is hard wired ... the app side of it is the make life easier fun part.

[ians]

This why I am really interested in smart technology ... SMART HOME ENERGY MANAGEMENT.

Since way back in 2008 when load shedding started ... I should have started reseach into energy management/distribution during load shedding or power failures.

Why ... because I hear the same tune played everytime I am called to a site where a generator solar system or inverter backup system is installed ... the installer and the customer come to an agreement to the fact that the system installed is not capable of running the entire house ...which resluts in all sorts of issues ... the entire system shutdown or the batteries go flat in a short period of time ...which makes the sytem pretty useless.

Most people relate power failures to the lights going out ... however once a backup system is installed ... nobody thinks to link a gms module to the backup system to send out notifications to all household members which results in the property owner not shutting down all those appliances that where discussed at the quoting stage and again once the sytem was setup ... and thats where the fight begins .. .the lights stay on and nobody knows there is a power failure or in SA load shedding ... so nothin gets switched off ... 10 minutes later you in the dark.

What is it that I want to achieve:

create a system which controls the entire house ... everything from the alarm to gate to washing machine you name it ... what I want to do is setup a house that can be controlled from your phone a tablet on the wall or remotes etc and educate all members of the household.

Have a backup system dedicated to security and essential items like the garage door or the gate things which have to work ... maybe not the garage door because you can pull the lever and overide ... but the gate for example ...due to security risks is eessential.

Have a seperate system which is a backup for the rest of the house/property (non essential) ... which has energy management devices which give you access to the power consumption.

by doing this a 5/8 kva backup hybrid (most people dont understand or are conned into believing they have one) system can be installed and the load distributed around the property as and when required ... so lets say you are at home and the power goes out there is a 100 % power available ... everyone is in the lounge/dinning room area lights are on and you can switch on the lounge aircon ... you want to use the coffee which will only take a few minutes ... so you program the smart system to stop using the compressor in the aircon while the coffee machine is running ... as soon as it is done the aircon goes back to compressor mode ... a silly but simple example.

[ians]

For the coffee addicts like myself ... wouldnt it make your day if you could get out of bed and your coffee was ready in the cup without having to kick the old girl out of bed to go make it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSZM...el=BoschGlobal

[ians]

The challenge continues.

The kids love it and I am enjoying the tinkering ... but not everyone is as excited ... so we have had to replace some lamps with standard lamps.

Do I want to automate my entire house ... maybe ... but for now just simple improvements.

Like this morning ... the lights setup around the house switched on at 4 am and over a 5 minute period went from off to 10 % brightness ... so you dont switch on a light and bang you blind you are few seconds.

next step is to get the coffee machine to switch on 5 minutes ealier so that the coffee is ready by the time I get to the kitchen.

The CCTV monitor will switch on and if any motion was detected a quick scan can done before the doors and security gates are opened to let the dogs out.

I noticed while collecting a parcel at the gate that the light has been moved and the spikes are bent down ... not sure when it happened ... but with the motion sensors setup ... it will be less time consuming running through hours of footage.

I will be installing smarter CCTV camers ... ones which can identify the diffrence between humans and other things.

I must say as I learn more about the apps and what they can do ... some the mind becomes like a bee hive.