My Home Automation Dreams

Just some brainstorming I’ve been doing lately. So far, my wife and I have only rented, which somewhat limits what we can do with our home. Granted, we loved our old house and this apartment is great (feels like living at a resort ), but sometimes I need more control.

Anyway, something that’s been on my mind lately is home automation. I would love to geek up a house to do exactly what I want. Here’s what I’ve been thinking of. I’m assuming money is no object, and since I probably won’t be able to do this until several years from now, I expect most of the tech will be pretty cheap when I get started.

I want to be able to control most everything in my home from wherever I am. I’d also like this to be unobtrusive and simple. How about a laptop touch-screen display, framed and set up with a nice picture (Monet?) and hanging on the wall. Touch it appropriately, and it alt-tabs over to a control panel. This control panel hooks into a server hidden away somewhere and gives me house-wide control over most of the following features:

My music, anywhere. I want a decent set of speakers set up in all or most of the rooms of my house – kitchen, den/living room, and office, at least. Pop up the control panel on my Monet and set up a playlist from the mp3s stored on that server, and it automatically pipes to the speakers in the room I’m in. If I go to another room, either let me manually transfer the music to the new room, or track me via RFID, Bluetooth (BlueProximity anyone?), or something similar.

HVAC control. I’ll have room-by-room central air control, naturally set up with this client-server system. No need for an extra thermostat in each room taking up wall space.

Security control. If I have any security monitors set up, I want to be able to access them from any of my dumb terminals. Probably password this in some way.

Information mashups. What’s the weather forecast? I can pull up an online recipe in the kitchen, or a car repair tutorial in the garage (lame, I know).

Alerts. Is there a tornado warning here? Do I have new email (this could tie into the aforementioned RFID/Bluetooth tracking to only display in the room I’m in)? Is someone at the front door (whether they’ve rung the doorbell or not – motion detector!)?

Cat tracking. I’m done in the basement and about to kill the lights and close the door, but I can’t be sure Anastasia didn’t follow me down here. Luckily, my Monet control panel says the RFID tag in her collar is currently batting things off the top of my dresser in my bedroom. I’ll deal with that later, but I can close up the basement now.

Along with the hidden panels on my walls, I would of course have a desktop machine in the office hooked into the system, and an EeePC or similar ultraportable near my coffee table in the den/living room. If I want to find out who that actress is in the movie I’m watching, I don’t want to get up and walk to the wall to do it.

There are a few other things that don’t make sense for the control panel theme, but can hook into the system just fine.

RFID/Bluetooth door locks. I want a front door that can tell when I’ve walked up to it, and unlocks (and maybe opens) at the push of a hidden button outside. If I walk up with arms full of groceries, I don’t want to have to dig for keys to get in – I’ll just lean on the button and walk inside.

Wireless connection to the mp3 player in my car. If I have to go buy some spackling or a hammer or whatever else I need as a homeowner doing geeky repairs, I want that playlist I was listening to to automatically transfer over so I can keep jamming on the way to Home Depot.

So, we’ll have to see how all of this matches up with my near-Amish wife who wants an authentic Victorian house.

Anybody feel like donating me an X10 gift card?