Advice needed on new house project.

[wyvernp]

Hi,
I'm just in the process of buying a new house and have been thinking about home automation and am in the need of some advice.
So, here's the plan.
The whole house automation system should be run from a central computer probably running homeseer.
The front door will be unlocked via a long distance RFID sensor (range about 1-2m) which will activate an electric release mechanism such as this; http://www.electriclock.net/acatalog/alpro-dual-voltage-electric-releases.html

which will be activate by http://proto-pic.co.uk/ethernet-16am...-relay-module/ with a view to also install fail-release versions on the internal doors so I can control access to individual rooms individually.

Now where I start to get a little confused is the lighting. Now presently I use Lutron Rania dimmers on most of my lights. I would like to keep these as the z-wave/ X-10 etc switches I have seen are hideously ugly. What I would like is simply a hidden module which can turn the lights on, off and dim them. This would be voice controlled via homeseer. Can anyone recommend a suitable product for this purpose?

Later additions will include a facial recognition doorbell and ANPR to identify and announce the arrival of people whom I program into the system.
Thanks in advance,
Wyvern

[toscal]

Wow those Alpro lock releases are expensive. I paid 55 euros.
X10 micro modules spring to mind, or use the Insteon Modules . Another HA system is PLCBus, this is similar to UPB in operation.
Homeseer is very good, but you will need quite a fast PC if you are going to use voice commands.

[Wexfordman]

How reliable is voice control these days? Remember messing about with it ten years ago and gave up, what does it look like now?

[toscal]

I last tried it about 6 years ago and like you gave up.

[Wexfordman]

Thanks, Have a couple of mixers and mics that i got from letsautmate gathering dust, was thinking they might be worth dusting down again, but unless things have improved dramaticly, not really worth bothering with!

[toscal]

The biggest problem is still background noise. It might be worth a play. I know of people who have had success using bluetooth headsets, the ones that clip on to your ear.

[wyvernp]

Thanks for the quick reply, I have found some mics but again they're terribly expensive but I guess it may be worth it, first in one room.

http://www.acousticmagic.com/product...utomation.html

As for the lock release, yeah it is expensive but I don't mind so much on the front door, if I do the internal ones it will be the cheaper £20 ones.

How fast a PC do you think would do the job, I have a quad core 3.6Ghz AMD rig with 8GB RAM currently as a media center, would that do?

[toscal]

That should be OK. One thing I did find with Homeseer is that it prefers a PC where thats the only thing running on it. I think Homeseer still do a trial version so you could download that and have a play.
Its worth going through the teaching phase with the voice recognition.

[wyvernp]

That should be OK. One thing I did find with Homeseer is that it prefers a PC where thats the only thing running on it. I think Homeseer still do a trial version so you could download that and have a play.
Its worth going through the teaching phase with the voice recognition.

I'll try and download that, if not i'm sure I can cobble something together from parts I have lying around.

I looked into those modules, Insteon look like the ones for me but I guess I'll have wait for the UK ones to be released.

On th RFID side can anyone recommend any long(ish) range readers?

[toscal]

Have a look at Wavetrend. Also iAutomate has some wavetrend stuff as well as a Homeseer kit.
More RFID links.
http://www.rfidreader.com/
http://www.trossenrobotics.com/c/usb...tags-kits.aspx more a roll your own sort of thing.
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8628

There are others. I did some test work on RFID products in 2004 the tags we used had the ability to store information. We where using them for asset tracking, location and service history. Problem came when we had about a thousand tags in the same area. Too much interference. Solved by attenuating the antenna, (I actually removed the antenna on the test reader and connected a small piece of copper wire), so the reader could only read the tags at a distant of no more than 30cm, which for us was perfect.