So, everyone's now interested in automating the things, even at home. Yeah that's right!!!
No one wants to get up to switch on a TV from their sofa or get the lights off when you're lying down on bed. This is now becoming a basic need of a SMART home.
So, how do we actually automate the things? Do we use any kind of new appliances? What goes on at the back end? What technology do they use? How much does it cost? And which one is the best to go for?
So many questions ??? We have the answer, read ahead to clear all your doubts.
1. The Appliance part:
Of course it's obvious that your old switches won't operate wireless, you need to change them up or create a network configuration that is suited with your old ones.
2. The Technology and back end part:
This is the part to understand and note down. There are many many technologies that can go through home automation and get your home wireless, let's look at some of them in detail (the popular ones are explained here)
At the old times we have wires going through the walls that control the system, but that's too old dude. Now we have some smart home gadgets that work on different protocols and make things wireless.
Just like the electronic systems, the smart devices have protocols that they follow and work on.
Let us make it simple to understand, Say two persons X and Y meet each other for the first time, X speaks English and Y speaks French and both don't understand each others language. what would happen?? A CHAOS!!!
This same things happen when we deal with wireless gadgets, the protocols are nothing but the languages that the two devices speak, and if they understand each other they will transfer the data and make things to work smoothly. For this to happen, one should now which language is his/her device speaking when one buys any smart gadget for his/her home automation.
Let's read about theses languages:
1. X10:
This is the granddaddy of all the protocols in home automation. The reason to say so, it was first used in the 70s and is power line based i.e hard-wired into your walls, but eventually it became wireless. Not a great speed giver but if you have devices that are very old and only understand X10 use it, otherwise forget this and move on!!
2. Insteon:
The problem of X10 is solved by Insteon. This protocol uses both power-line power and wireless protocol. That means if you have any X10 devices in your home then go for this one, so you can connect your old as well new devices together. But, still this is not the preferred language that we need in home automation.
3. Z-WAVE:
That's a new thing coming up, and it's very powerful. Operating in the 908.42Mhz frequency band, it has recently grown his power in the home automation system. It's used mostly nowadays only cause it supports the "Mesh" Network. MESH network meaning that each of the node(gadget) is connected to other in n number of ways. This makes a lot advantage to go with, like the mesh topology in the computer networks, Z-Wave follows the same lines, so if any one of the link goes down, your gadget will still work.
Being a low power device, this protocol is mostly used in battery powered devices.
After seeing the above languages(protocols) followed by home automation, we go to the 3 most common one's that are know to us, which are:
Zigbee v/s Wi-fi v/s Bluetooth:
4. Zigbee:
This is an 802 wireless standard protocol of IEEE. It uses the 2.4Ghz band, the same used by the other 2 competitors, but at much lower data rates. Like the Z-wave protocol, zig-bee has been also growing in demand due to it's mesh network and lower power consumption, but it drawbacks in data rates and not all the devices work well with Zig-Bee.
PS: Called Zig-Bee because it is named after the sound that is created when the Bees dance and communicate with each other.
5. Wi-Fi:
Worried about what to do of the hard-wires in your house that form the network? how to make them wireless? WI-FI is your answer for it. The Wi-fi is direct replacement to the Ethernet cable, all you need is a hub or router, this will directly connect to the PC and will give you a direct access to the Internet. It's famous, but not the idle one, want reasons? here they are:
- Takes a lot of power cannot be implemented in the battery backed device
- Difficult to install and still has power-line in it.
- One access point only, it breaks we are down
6. Bluetooth:
We all are familiar with the Bluetooth. A new version named "BLE" Bluetooth Low Energy protocol is introduced for home automation. It's used for point to point connection and suitable for creating ad-hoc networks and very useful when we want to connect devices within a room only. Why Bluetooth is moslty used because it has options like USB to bluetooth converter and thus can be used to connect any gadgets like Solar panels and many more. But since the point to point thing it falls behind Wi-fi also.
PS: Interesting thing, guess why bluetooth is called so?It is derived from the congomen of a 10th century king named, Harald Bluetooth king of Denmark and Norway. He was famous for unification of nations and Bluetooth was first invented in Erricson lab, where the after the invention of this they were confused to name it and found out about this Viking king , Harald and named after the king. One more interesting thing, is about the bluetooth symbol. It may sound fascinating, but the Bluetooth symbol is actually the initials of Harald Bluetooth in Scandinavian Runes :) ;)
That was all about Our guide to Home Automation and choosing the best from 6, we only could get the top 3 and they are:
1. ZigBee
2. Wi-fi
3. Z-Wave
Zig-Bee devices are less in market but in as an upgrowing market, Wi-fi are already there and so are the 2nd best choice for home automation else go for Z-wave instead bluetooth because Bluetooth has the drawback of point to point connection.
We are done. Hope you enjoyed reading it and think of getting your Home Automated Soon :)
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