Somehow, the Automation control logic has to be programmed to do your bidding. That lack of direct human interaction is one of the things that makes Automation very complex. The more automated your home, the more complex the control algorithm. Event triggers can be cascaded (one trigger can result in actions that trigger other events) and can be the result from something that didn’t happen, such as your daughter didn’t arrive home from school between 4:00 and 4:30 PM.Ĭondition-reporting devices like motion sensors can influence one or many events-a motion sensor on your home security system in a Disarmed state can do double duty to trigger lighting and influence lighting levels and patterns depending on time of day or measured ambient light level. In our Irrigation example, conditions such as Time of Year and the data from moisture sensors or rain gauges can be used to influence the zone watering duration, or whether to water at all. Any device that can change state can be used to trigger automated actions–a doorbell button, a glass-break sensor, a motion sensor, a water-where-water-shouldn’t-be sensor, someone entering a front door lock code, a car entering a driveway, etc. The triggers can directly cause some action to happen, or one or more Conditions can modify or delay the action. Triggers that initiate this automated processing can be a scheduled one-time event or a recurring event like starting the lawn sprinklers at 6:00 AM on alternate days. Still more complex logic is needed to instruct the controlled devices to do their useful work.
#MY HOMESEER SERIES#
The Humans pre-define what is expected to happen in a given series of events and conditions the largely unattended Machines do the actual work. Once you plan beyond media room A/V control and lighting, a smaller percentage of events are triggered directly by deliberate human action. This is what automation is…the automatic sensing and reacting to conditions with little or no human interaction. Condition-sensing can extend well beyond whether the system is already powered up or not– temperature, time of day, existing light levels, state of other devices, phase of the moon, etc.–can all directly or indirectly influence what action is to be taken when a trigger happens. Data from the same sensor can influence may events, and many sensors can influence the same event. In a Whole House Automation system there is a much more complex programmed relationship between devices, sensors, and conditions. The programming to make this happen is straightforward–not a lot of conditional logic– and the complete automation scenario can easily be defined and documented for a programmer to execute.
#MY HOMESEER MOVIE#
In a relatively simple media room control example, the user presses a Play Movie button on a touchpanel, triggering a series of events that turn on the A/V system (if a sensor notes it is not already ON), selects the A/V input if needed, dims room lights, starts video playout, etc. The Event is usually a programmed action that is expected to take place when a Trigger happens. Triggers are usually a change in device status or a sensor reporting some over-threshold condition. They work closely together with programmed triggers and events. Whole-house automation integrates a very wide array of technologies, all of which pretty much fall into two fundamental categories: controllable devices that respond to commands and do something useful, and sensors that monitor, measure, and report conditions.