Automated Home

Control4′s Blake VanCleave gives a quick behind the scenes look at a condo in Indiana that features a Panelized Lighting system.  The panel is inside a cabinet, completely hidden away from the customer… The advantage of doing this then, is that the consumer only gets to see a single keypad in each one of these zones. The […]

At Automated Home we’re lucky to have a Web Wizard working behind the scenes to keep the site in tip-top shape – Steve Edwards. Steve started off as an Automated Home reader and attended the famous UKHA2003 and UKHA2004 meets in Hatfield.  Sometime later we kidnapped him and forced him to work he volunteered to help with the […]

Tado° launched their smart home heating control system in Germany, Austria and Switzerland around this time last year.  Now they’ve adapted their mobile app and developed a new connector kit especially designed for UK homes, as well as launching across the rest of Europe. The two elements of the system are the tado box and the free iPhone / Android […]

Remember when everyone had to have a big bulky PC on their desktop.  Now we all want Laptops that give us the freedom to take our powerful computer with us, whether we are travelling from home to work or just from the bedroom to the lounge.  The laptop computer provides such a useful work tool these days, […]

Idratek are well known for their work in building intricate smart home systems whilst reducing the complexity for the user. Director, Karam Karam takes us through a recent assisted living installation that has lessons for all home automators… Significant home automation installs tend to be seen as the preserve of the gadget lover or in the context […]

Here’s the Scobleizer’s half-hour Google Hangout with Revolv co-founder, Mike Soucie. Revolv aim to be the App to unify your home automation systems on iOS (Android coming by Q2 next year) and their $300 hardware hub contains 7 radios including Wi-Fi, ZigBee, Z-Wave and Insteon. With it they can control Sonos, Philips Hue, Belkin WeMo and Nest […]

After technology, cars have always been my other passion.  So you’d think the electric car, sitting at the junction of both my interests would be nirvana for me, right?  Wrong.  As a confirmed petrol head, I’ve always mourned the impending (if elongated) death of the internal combustion engine. But the reality of climate change and the […]

Here’s another interesting smart home heating controller that just hit our inbox.  The £180 PT32-GST from Audon Electronics is a room programmer and thermostat and allows you to control your home heating system with SMS Text messages. Available from Audon Electronics Ltd, the PT32-GST can control your central heating system in your home by using your mobile […]

After we featured this nano router last month we were contacted by Automated Home reader Ken Watt, urging us to look at the Asus WL-330N3G as an alternative. Ken’s recommendation is a £26 Wireless N 3G Mobile Router offering six different modes – Network adapter, access point, wireless router, repeater, Hotspot (Wi-Fi account sharing), 3G sharing modes.  One […]

Adding IP control to your garage doors is a great little home automation project for a wet weekend and it really shows the power and simplicity of Indigo. The easiest way to interface to most garage doors is through their manual push button control.  These are usually securely inside the property and using them removes the […]