Retrofit home automation

[Dubs]

Bought a house and want to be able to have wireless control over lights, sound, security, maybe aircon and to create scenes.

I am happy to cable the place up myself but have no idea what system to be looking at or even an approximate cost.

Please chime in or direct me to an open thread.

Dubs

[Sunshine & F'n Rainbows]

Disclaimer: Things may have changed in home automation in the 2 years since I was looking at them.

Long story short, they're either a bit shit, or insanely expensive, or require enormous investment in 'rolling your own' system by use of extreme nerd wizardry. You'll need an Austel cert to run cabling for the system as well.

I think the Schneider / Clipsal C-Bus system is still the best solution that's close to an out-of-the-box setup, but comes with some whopping bucks attached to it, moreso if you're retrofitting as a number of existing devices would need replacing to be C-Bus compliant. The C-Bus stuff *does* have some wifi options to avoid running a tonne of cables, but I don't know what the limitations of them are.

Going bespoke, you'll need a central control system of some sort, a lot of cabling and a lot of controllers to manage individual devices (so a controller to talk to an existing air conditioner, pick up environment conditions, feed those back to you, take instructions from you on how you want to change the environment, etc).

It'd be a multi-year DIY project if you were rolling your own setup mate, and you would need to have a lot of time to burn on soldering interface boards together, cutting code and breaking things.

[Thunderbird]

Try Fibaro from Advanced Homes. Its a wireless system that can be retro fitted and each sensor comunicates and repeats to the next creating a mini network and extending the range of your system. I believe all the wireless units are small and are just retro fitted behind your existing light switches.

Advanced Homes

The Fibaro System | Fibaro - Z-Wave smart home solution

[Sunshine & F'n Rainbows]

Try Fibaro from Advanced Homes. Its a wireless system that can be retro fitted and each sensor comunicates and repeats to the next creating a mini network and extending the range of your system. I believe all the wireless units are small and are just retro fitted behind your existing light switches.

Advanced Homes

The Fibaro System | Fibaro - Z-Wave smart home solution

That looks fucking awesome.

Time to go read some reviews on how it actually performs. Tech companies have lied to me before


**edit: Holy shit... looks like these guys might have cracked the affordable-home-automation code. Very nice find there Mr Bird.

Fibaro Z-Wave Home Center 2 Mega Review | Automated Home

[=Stevo=]

The z-wave stuff is where it is at. Was involved in a little business plan for a friend for automating some chalets in Dwellingup on Nanga Road, was insanely capable for the price provided there was a wireless internet connection available.

- Customer books chalet online
- Booking site automatically spits out random 4 or 6-digit PIN, which it e-mails to customer and also to the Z-wave system.
- Z-wave PIN door lock receives PIN and it only allows access with that PIN from check-in time to check-out time.
- 2 hours prior to booking time, split air-con switches on and brings chalet to 22 degrees
- Half an hour prior to customer arriving, all lights switched on
- Water level sensor in water tank detects low potable water volumes and starts up bore pump, stops when at top, tracks number of refills and hence total litres used (for bore license purposes)
- Distance sensor in the septic tank notes when getting within a foot of the top, automatically sends a text or e-mail to the local sucker truck company, who have their own private 4-6 digit PIN (which can then be tracked as well for when they actually entered the house)
- Cleaners are issued a private PIN which can be tracked for use

[brendanc]

I heard someone called Dave set it up, it didn't go well though..

[Dubs]

Automate Your Home via Voice Commands with Tasker and VeraLite

Keep the info coming

Dubs

[Morgs]

"Automate your home via Voice Commands" - I already have this - "Oi, make me a cup of tea" usually works. Actually it doesn't, but let's not let the truth get in the way here. A friend of mine is developing his own home automation using Raspberry Pi(s), and open source software. I am not sure how easy it would be to set up, but is certainly cheap.

[Dubs]

Watch Siri Turn Into a Home Automation Master With the Help Of Raspberry Pi

[Dubs]

WeMo Light Switch | WeMo Home Automation | Home Automation | Products | Belkin Australia Site#

[Dubs]

Just saw this, EoP might be an option for those walls that are single brick and I CBF cutting channells in them

TP-Link TL-PA211 200Mbps Powerline Ethernet Adapter Kit [TL-PA211-KIT] - $59.00 : PC Case Gear

Netcomm 500Mbps Powerline Adapter Ethernet Over Power W AC Pass Through NP504 | eBay

Anyone used similar or have knowledge on them?

Dubs

[Sunshine & F'n Rainbows]

I think [MENTION=7023]thro[/MENTION] was using some without any measure of success for an extended period?

They're pretty nasty, last I tried a set (as much as a lot of stuff has changed in home automation, the tech behind EOP is ugly, ugly stuff and I don't trust it at all).

[thro]

Nah not me. Considered them and went for an airport instead.

[xphread]

If you are in any way nerdy, and happy to do a bit of work, you cant go past Arduinos and relay boards (or Solid state relay boards if you want it completely silent and arent a super tight-arse like me! .

I have wired up my new house (which is a lot easier than retro fitting as "star" wiring is the way to go) with 32 channels of control (including integration with garage door), mixed 240v and 12v switching - for less than $200. (plus my programming time)

All up cost for the whole system was less than it would have cost me if I had done a standard install, as the cable to all the switchplates are Cat5 instead of multiple runs of TPS. Plus, I have nice stainless steel wall plates and soft touch metal switches, instead of boring white plastic.

Next stage is to connect it into aircon (when I find the interface specs for that) and make it IP accessable, so I can talk to it via the ipad or our phones.

Retrofitting using this method isnt quite so easy unless its a single storey house and you have relatively easy ceiling access to all the wiring above the lights and switchpoints.

[Dubs]

Mine is single story and I am happy to crawl around, ive been reading a bit on Raspberry Pi but not much on Arduino.
Thanks

Dubs