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Smart(ass) Homes:
For years people have been claiming that smart homes are just around the corner. But the truth is, home automation is already here. In fact, the technology is almost a quarter of a century old. The technology is called X-10, but a company called Home Automated Living has brought it into the 21st century. A QUICK BACKGROUND ON X-10 X-10 technology is simply a method of sending singals over your existing home wiring. For example, an ordinary lamp can become a "smart home lamp" by plugging the lamp's power cord into an X-10 module and then plugging that module directly into the wall outlet (see image, below). Now that lamp can be controlled by an X-10 remote control, an X-10 motion sensor or by a computer outfitted with an X-10 transmitter.
Each module has it's own alphanumeric address consisting of a single letter and a number from one to sixteen. If you examine the X-10 module in the photo above, you can see that it is set to A13. These alphanumeric addresses allow you to address a single lamp in a specific room to turn on, off or dim. Likewise, you can group an entire set of lights (track lighting, table lamps and floor lamps, for example) by giving them the same alphanumeric address. There are many different X-10 modules allowing you to control kitchen appliances, motorized drapes, home theatre equipment and even your home's heating and air conditioning. Likewise, there are numerous remote controls, keypads and computer programs to manage the string of appliances you can install in your home. The problem is almost all of these products merely respond to your direct commands. For example, pressing the A13 button on a remote would turn on the lamp shown in our example above. While that is nice to do if you're in bed and want to turn off the lights, it's only one step above the light switch that is included (for free) on the lamp itself. HAL - THE PREMIER HOME AUTOMATION SYSTEM Home Automated Living has developed HAL, a software application that goes several steps beyond X-10 to create a home that thinks for you. Once you've installed X-10 modules around the home, you can control them using your voice and the microphone attached to your computer. Simply saying "Turn on the living room lamp" or "Turn on all exterior house lights" will activate the appliances. HAL verbally responds to your commands with statements like "I have turned on the living room lamp." Installing the optional modem will allow you to call home from anywhere in the world to take voice control the system. But where HAL really shines is in the home automation department. Using the program's seven pane Automation Setup window, you can enable HAL to completely run your household. Once you have set up HAL with the address of each X-10 module in your home, you can quickly program him to turn on the outside lights at dusk and off at dawn, illuminate your front hallway when a visitor approaches the front door and set back the thermostat when no one is home. The true benefit of HAL is that it's abilities are only limited by your imagination and the X-10 modules that you own. During this review, I set up notifications that verbally alerted me when the mail arrives in the mailbox and a "garage door left open" alert that sets off a bell in the house if it is occupied, or sends a message to my cell phone if I am away. ADDITIONAL "BUTLER-LIKE" FEATURES Like any good butler would do, HAL can respond to stimuli, or act on his own. For example, if you notify HAL that you are going to bed, he can turn off all of your lights (except your bedroom, if you so specify) activate the security system and set the thermostat to a slightly lower temperature. Likewise, external stimuli (like motion detectors) can trigger HAL to react, either making the house look occupied when there's motion in the back yard or to welcome you home when you enter the garage. HAL can also automatically start your coffee pot 30 minutes before you wake up, so you'll have fresh brewed java ready for you. HAL also features a "Personal Assistant" which includes a voice-activated phone pad, calendar and shopping list. The Phone Pad can dial your friends and family when you speak their name. And, although the system always reads Caller ID names out loud, HAL can provide custom announcements (Like "Mom" or "Junior") when they call your house (if you subscribe to Caller-ID). The calendar is a simple reminder application that will notify you with a 7 second message you record when you specify the date and time you want it to play. HAL can also use your contacts in Microsoft Outlook for all of the phone pad features and insert reminders into the Outlook calendar. The shopping list is a database that stores grocery items. When open, you can add up to three items at a time (for example "Add apples, juice and milk") and HAL will confirm that it understood your orders. This list can then be printed at your command as well. OH YEAH, HAL'S INTERNET CONNECTED In addition to the X-10 and personal assistant features, HAL includes a powerful set of Internet services that will please the hardcore info-junkies. News, weather, traffic, sports and stock information is all available to HAL and the latter four can be customized to your personal locale, commute, teams and investments. TV listings are also downloaded and if your computer is equipped with an IR transmitter, you can actually ask HAL what's on TV, and then tell him to record it. Recording will work on VCRs or digital recorders like TiVo. Although we mentioned E-mail notifications that can be sent from HAL, the program is also able to download messages from standard POP3 mail servers and read them to you. While the E-mail reading feature was a little tedious with some of our longer messages, this system would obviously be invaluable to sight-impaired users. While this information alone was enough to merit a review on SemperAptus.com, the truly impressive part is that HAL can include this information when it provides verbal responses to you. For example, when HAL detects motion inside the house first thing in the morning, he can give you the news, weather and traffic. When he detects motion in the evening, he can give you your stock portfolio's closing prices, announce your unread E-mail count and tell you what's on TV in the next few hours. HAL - THE NEXT GENERATION While all of these features may already seem overwhelming, the team at Home Automated Living is constantly improving HAL to provide even more functionality. During the few months that we conducted our review of HAL, two updates were released to include new features like "scenes" which can set your home on vacation mode, the ability to customize the Caller ID announcements and E-mail notifications which can send messages to your E-mail enabled cell phone.
In March, a new Digital Music Center will provide a auditory add-on to HAL. In the wake of the MP3 craze, the DMC component will rip CDs onto your hard drive and automatically categorize your music by artist, song, album, genre, and year. Then, using your voice, tell HAL to play rock music, or everything by Sting. But more importantly, music can now become a part of the powerful HAL responses. Imagine having classical music automatically play at dinner, or exactly 30 minutes of soft rock at bedtime. HAL will become your new personal DJ who takes verbal requests and never plays commercials. And, best of all, it's only a $29.95 add-on. PRICING AND AVAILABILITY For experienced home automation enthusiasts who have already implemented X-10 throughout their house, HAL is the must-have computer application. The product is available in three versions: Basic ($99), Deluxe ($239*) and HAL2000 ($399). For a complete chart of the differences in functionality, visit Home Automated Living's product features page. The optional modem for the telephony features mentioned in this article is $69. HAL can be installed in under 1/2 hour and requires an RS-232 port on your computer. The system is available from the company's web site and at Lowe's Home Improvement stores nationwide.
For novices, pricing the HAL system is extremely tricky. Although there are
slightly more expensive bundles which include a handful of X-10 modules,
you will need a considerable amount of modules if you are starting out
fresh. To equip a 2,000 square foot home, we used 18 push button wall
switches (for lights with a wall switch), 5 lamp modules and 10 X-10
outlets which totaled nearly $400. And, with an X-10 compatible thermostat
for $250, you're quickly running into 4-figure costs just to buy all the
hardware. If you're not comfortable installing the X-10 modules (some of
which will require turning off the house power and rewiring outlets), you
can double the costs to have an electrician do all the work for you.
CONCLUSION If you haven't tried X-10, HAL might be getting in over your head. However if you're familiar with X-10 automation, but have thought of it as clunky or inconvenient, HAL will turn you around and make you a true believer in the smart home. Of course, If you're already using X-10, HAL is the only option to consider as a full-featured computerized manager of your smart home. The product is incredibly well-designed, extremely flexible and most importantly, Internet connected! (* The modem is included in the HAL Deluxe package)
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