Automated Home

Kickstarter is always throwing up cool tech these days and this is no exception.  LIFX is a WiFi enabled, multi-color, energy efficient LED light bulb that you control with a free app from your iPhone or Android device. The system can address bulbs individually or as a group and they can even be used to flash as [...]

The fine folks at Fibaro and Vesternet were kind enough to lend us a sizeable home automation system based around Fibaro’s premium Home Center 2 controller, plus a bunch of their Z-Wave modules too. Ant Skelton has had the system on test for a few months and has given it a damned good seeing to. [...]

Couple of quick vids from Crestron’s Design Showroom in New York City showing the interaction of smart home technology and Interior design… Crestron.com Want More? - Follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, or subscribe to our RSS feed. You can even get these news stories delivered via email, straight to your inbox every day

US Smart Home company Insteon have revealed a new 8 watt remote control dimmable LED light bulb.  With an amazing price of just $29.99 the bulbs can also be controlled from smartphones and other computers over the Internet with the addition of a SmartLinc Hub. With Insteon committing to entering the European market this year [...]

Helvars new DIGIDIM 454 is a 4 channel DIN rail mounted trailing-edge dimmer. Helvar says applications include “high-end homes” and the new design benefits from an integrated illuminated LED display for intuitive monitoring and local manual configuration. “Helvar has expanded its range of dimmers to include the new trailing-edge DIGIDIM 454 which has been developed [...]

A quick home automation video demo video of the JenNet-IP system controlling lighting via Wi-Fi.  NXP and Belkin WeMo are collaborating to show this system where each light bulb gets its own IPv6 address. The system uses an enhanced 6LoWPAN network layer as defined by the IETF and targets ultra-low-power IEEE802.15.4-based wireless networking for residential [...]

It’s not often that a new Home Automation system comes along that can genuinely challenge the elderly, but universally established X10 protocol.  But LightwaveRF looks like it could just be the one to knock X10 off its perch in the budget sector.  Automated Home regular Ant Skelton takes us through a comprehensive overview of this [...]

Helvar has launched new control panels for their DIGIDIM range of smart home lighting products. They say the new designs refresh the look of existing plates while retaining their build quality and functionality. "“The most commonly used interfaces in a lighting control system are the control panels,” says Alan Jackson, International Business Development Director at [...]

So bulbs are this months thing.  NXP have announced their new GreenChip IP Smart Lighting Solution which allows users to “monitor, manage and control every light bulb from any Internet-enabled device”. Their partnership with GreenWave Reality brings intelligent lighting control to CFL and SSL (LED) lamps with support for IP v4 and v6.  The low [...]

Yesterdays announcement that Google have arrived in the Home Automation world continues to make waves.  This morning Engadget have got their hands on some of the wireless LED bulbs show in the demos and have revealed some interesting details about them. Among the specs it’s emerged that the system uses 900MHz – which is currently [...]