Smart Home (The Beginning) - Part 1

The theme "Smart Home" is already on everyone's lips. They say about it, invest in it, develop it ... On this topic, such giants as Siemens , General Electric, and others have been joined by seemingly not quite relevant companies, such as Microsoft , Google , Apple .

There is no single standard on the topic, just as there is no instruction, they say, “do it like this”, so theoretically everyone can build their own smart home and exactly the way they want and therefore I couldn’t skip this topic and actively connected to it. I won't say that I ate a dog with smart houses ... no, rather, I took a bite, but nevertheless, based on my experience and my observations, I will try to lay out a detailed ... mmm ... How-To? No, do not pull. Overview? It’s not that either ... Rather, it will be a piece of advice or some kind of advice.
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The theater begins with a hanger, and I will begin by saying that I will immediately dot the “I” so that readers will not have in the process of reading an unreasonable negative or just some kind of misunderstanding.

The most important thing is that the article is intended for people who have not really understood yet, do they really need this very “Smart House” at all and do they need to get into this topic?

Now the term.
Let's be honest, “Smart Home” is not just such an artificial intelligence system that talks to you in the morning in the bathroom (while you shave) and prepares you dinner while you go home. Do not confuse the system with his wife.



A smart home is any automation / automation system (or a complex of automation / automation systems) that, at least in a tiny fraction, makes your life easier. It doesn't matter what it is: automatic switching off of the light in the toilet after a person leaves the door and closes the door, or a system that waters the house flowers itself, feeds your favorite cat and blocks the water supply pipe if you are late at work. If something works in your house on the basis of an algorithm, then this can already be called the “Smart Home” system, only with limited functionality.

“Smart Home” is not only a mansion stuffed with electronics, but also an apartment in which your automation and / or control system works, i.e. “Smart apartment” is also “Smart Home” and we will use this term further in the text.

In general, unnecessary tediousness is useless to a person, and go into the controversy on the question of how clever the “Smart House” turned out to be that Kohl's student did — I consider the disrespect of the work of Kohl himself. Did he do it? Does it work and control something? Great, well done! Let it grow further above itself.

Back to the topic.

We want to build our "Smart Home", where to start? With the purchase, construction? No, in this matter, as in all engineering tasks, you need to start with paper, or rather, with the project. Will it be a chewed piece of paper with only diagrams and drawings that are clear to you, or will it be something drawn in * CAD ... the main thing is that at least you can understand what is shown there.

Do not be afraid to describe “distant plans”, write down and think over everything, even what you can do in a very distant future. It is better to think everything over now for later it will be too late. This experience is paid for with the blood of many engineers who have attacked numerous rakes.

What should I look for?

1. Users

Think about how users will treat the system you enter, i.e. Your home residents or your family members. Whether those who are not technically savvy will be able to use it (old people, children or wife - no matter who it is). A scenario like: “Honey, the light in the toilet is on now, now I’ll only install firmware to Arduin.” Does not fit. Imagine that you are handing over your system to a rich "bydlovaty" gangster who, seeing your switches with LED illumination, will tell you: " This ... hear, and what the hell is this? Where is it? ". What is obvious to you may not be completely understood by the others.

2. Technology

Wired or wireless. If wired, then you need to build plans for laying all the necessary cables (and better with a large margin). Where to make walls, where to place sockets and automation elements - everything should be in the diagram. If the system is wireless, then consider where the transmitters / receivers will be located, where the signal repeaters will be located.
Now you remember this, in a month, when there will be a lot of information, there will be porridge in my head and something will be forgotten.

3. Artist

Who will do all this? Are you yourself or a hired specialist? Independently it will be cheaper, but you will need a deep immersion in the question. We will still rely on self-deployment, because the category of the article "Do it yourself", is not it?

4. Autonomy

Thinking through the functionality and capabilities of a smart home, always rely on the fact that the house will not have the Internet. Of course, many smart guys will object to me, they say, you need to think about the possibility of interfacing with something in the outside world ... think, lay, no one argues, but your smart home should work properly in full autonomy / isolation mode. It may be difficult for a person living in a megapolis to understand how so that there is no Internet at all ... GPRS, ADSL, at least something must be backed up? No no and one more time no! Nothing can be, but everything should work.

Here is an example:
You built a funny system: say "Nathan, turn on the slow cooker / toilet light" and the system turns off the slow cooker or the toilet light, simultaneously saying "Turn on". But suddenly, because of the vicious al-Qaida hackers, your provider’s network fell off, and the network of your mobile operator Rupor, which provides you with a backup LTE channel, fell behind it. Naturally, Google TTS, which was based on your voice control system, fell off and the smart home in the blink of an eye turned into a dumb stupid who cannot turn anything on. Make manual control, and even better, make the system so that it can, for example, read aloud the weather without the Google voice service. Difficult, but possible. Nobody said that deploying “Smart Home” is how to install MS Office.

Second example:
You did control the smart home through an Android application, but after the malicious hacker attack described above, your smartphone could not contact the cloud service and give the smart home command to turn off the forgotten iron. Write your application that will be able to work remotely via a 2G-network of the mobile operator or via Wi-Fi, if you are within the coverage area of ​​your home access point.

5. The next point to be remembered in the design follows from the previous one: The “core” of your automation system.

Your home may have a router (ADSL, LTE or some other), a switch or some other network switching device, but the “home” must control the smart home - a separate and independent device. In no case do not combine the management of network traffic and the management of the house in one piece of iron. Now there are a lot of routers on which you can install firmware with a miniature copy of Linux, and many people familiar with this topic are trying to hang such routers on such routers. Personally, I love such routers, in which you can tweak more precisely what I need, but I do not consider it right to install controls on a device that was not originally designed for this.
Your home can remain completely without a network, but home automation should work or vice versa, home automation can “fly out”, but this should not drag the LAN (local network) to the bottom.

6. Core placement

Under all this cotovasiyu with a router, a switch, a kernel of a control system, systems of reserve food, etc. need to allocate a separate place: cupboard, closet, closed niche / mezzanine. Anything where there is ventilation (the equipment will warm up and you need to think about cooling) and where it will not interfere / get into your eyes. Your system should not spoil the general form of housing and make negative changes in home comfort.

If you have a basement, then it is better to deploy your “flight control center” there.


7. Costs

Perhaps it was necessary to insert it somewhere closer to the beginning, but if the previous points are not fully worked out, then it may not come to costs.
The most important thing to know is that “Smart Home” is a damn expensive undertaking. You can do something yourself (poison boards, program microcontrollers), but this will only reduce your costs, and not eliminate them at all.
The next most important thing to consider in this paragraph is duplication. Purchase any equipment and performers lay in double size and always round to the big side. In your home, each performer (switches, sensors, etc.) should be placed in the backup stunt (unless, of course, a third-party organization is engaged in servicing your home). Do not count on the fact that if something breaks, then you will go to the store and buy.

Example:
Skipped tension. Protection, though worked, but part of the built-in light switches burned out, I got sick yesterday and are at home with a temperature of 39.2 degrees. Suppose you are a courageous man (this is a pun that turned out), and, spitting on your health, you decided to get out of bed and replace all the switches on your own, but ... what? Understudy.

We decided to place a camera in front of the entrance? Buy two. We figured that around the house you need 12 "smart" switches? Buy 24. Do you think it does not happen that all 12 will fly out at once? It happens, unfortunately, the very first thing you need to be duplicated is the core of the system.

Total

I described an insignificantly small part of the beginning of such a large and interesting project for the majority of “techies” as the “Smart Home”. This topic affects almost all areas of IT: networks, programming, administration, automation, electrical and electronics ... and from this it is a complex subject that requires a special approach. This is evident from what I wrote above, but if not, then the writer has not matured in me.

It’s impossible to cram all the text into one article, I’ve already done enough, because there will be at least one more piece of material which, in principle, will contain tips / recommendations on choosing software and hardware. It sounds a bit strange, they say, such a variety of technologies, what advice can there be? However, there are tips and tricks even in this situation.

The link to the second part (when it is ready) will be inserted at the end of the first, to make it easier to search.

Thank you all for your attention, and those who read it all to the end.

Continued: Smart Home (The Beginning) - Part 2