Items Tagged With installation

Here's a useful little device if you need a phone socket but can't run a cable.  It's especially interesting as it's data friendly so you can use it for you PC, the modem in your Sky box, fax machine etc (approx 50m range).  The units use an upgrade of the DECT standard which increases its data rate from 9 Kbit/s to 56 Kbit/s to fully support V90 modems.  The transmitter receiver pair is £50 and additional receivers are available at £25...

London based company, En-Twyn recently showed this prototype at the CeBit show.  Kind of a HomePlug Ethernet unit, built into a regular power outlet faceplate, it's an interesting idea that would particularly appeal to anyone wanting to retro-fit lots of Ethernet in their home...

We’ve had our Sonos setup for nearly three years now and it continues to be a joy to own and use.  Our original setup of 2 x ZP100s (the zone players with built in amplifiers) was recently added to with a third un-amp’d ZP80.  The new ZonePlayer was swapped for the ZP100 in the AV room where amplification was not required as it was already plugged into our home cinema system.  So the plan was to utilise the now spare ZP100 as a zone in the en-suite bathroom off our main bedroom...

Why automate your lights? Well, to be honest, most of my house is automated, so it seemed the obvious thing to do. There are lots of benefits in automating parts of your house, lighting in particular just makes life easier, lights coming on when you walk into a room is better than switching them on yourself! ....and because they turn themselves on, they turn themselves off too, so you can't forget...

This morning I was primed to settle down to a normal day's work when Chaos on the UK Home Automation IRC Channel mentioned something about "B&Qs HomeEasy automation stuff", and that pretty much put paid to the rest of the morning. We turfed up the website but there was precious little information on there besides the usual marketing guff. So, time for an in-depth review for Automated Home.  Is this the successor to X10 I've been looking for?  Read on to find out and check out the rest of the photos and the video...