Automated Home

Powerline adapters have been around for a while.  They provide a great way to add an Ethernet socket to locations where running a network cable would be impractical.  Now UK tech start-up company, Power Ethernet, has launched the ‘PE Socket, the first product to integrate Powerline networking technology directly into an electrical outlet.  Check out [...]

We spotted these beauties on our rounds – HiDef distribution, whether from your super digital HDMI or old school analogue component HD. You can use CAT5/CAT5E or CAT6 between points and they are available as free-standing units or in these wall plate versions. “Key Digital’s HDMI FatCAT Series is the ideal product line for sending [...]

  The iPhone and iPod Touch continue to prove themselves the platform of choice for Home Automation developers.  Now high-end Smart Home company Crestron have released their own app that allows management and control of climate, lighting, shades and security systems over Wi-Fi and even the cellular network. "Crestron App Provides Fully Integrated Control From [...]

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 [...]

Home CCTV – I have had CCTV at home for 8 years now in one form or another. Over that time camera performance has increased, whilst prices have fallen. Par for the course where most technology is concerned I suppose. A year or so ago I bought a Samsung CCTV switcher from eBay to view [...]

Part P of the UK building regulations is intended to reduce accidents due to bad wiring. The new Regulations that are due to come into force this year, will make it a criminal offence for un-qualified people to carry our electricial wiring work without having it tested and certificated to BS7671. Even as an individual [...]

Submission by Seggy T Segaran The TestNET is a handy Ethernet checker. If you have a CAT5 socket which in theory should have Ethernet, but you are not sure, you can quickly verify service, 10/100 MHz operation and whetehr duplex is supported with this product. With the crossover cable supplied, it can easily be used [...]

The downloadable version of the on-line Automated Home UK Wiring Guide. Save yourself sometime by downloading this and extracting to a folder on your hard drive. Much quicker than waiting for all those pictures to download. This is an on-going DRAFT version and as a work-in-progress document please excuse the mess! 1.26MB Zip file

My good mate Darren has the “Daddy” of all Cable Testers. It’s a Fluke something-or-other and it’s amazing! It can ping IPs, generate network traffic, test bandwidth , tell how long your CAT5 cable is, how many metres down the cable the break is (if there is one) and even the date and time the [...]

The way we use our homes is changing. Inside the front door, we are surrounded by ever more electronic appliances – PCs, modems, TVs, video recorders, set-top boxes, telephones and so on… But wouldn’t it be great if we could all use the appliances we wanted, when we wanted, anywhere in the house? BT can [...]