INSTEON and other home automation goodies.

[InfidelSerf]

I have a good friend who has a complete home automation system with voice activation, rain sensors that notify him if a window is open and it starts raining, RFID on his vehicles so the house can inform him that it's raining and such and such car is in the driveway not in the garage.  Lots of really cool features that he has programmed into the system to handle lighting and entertainment needs.  He wired most of his home with mics and in wall or in ceiling speakers for multizoning entertainment handling.   Fingerprint and voice activated security features.  As well as several touchscreens to control the whole system.  In addition to all this he can control any aspect of the homes control and lighting from either his pda/cellphone or any computer with internet access.
His next step was to add motorized blind and window controls as well as cameras to monitor it all.
slick just doesn't define the entire scope of the control.

Well one fundamental aspect of the system is the control over lighting as well as HVAC info being provided by INSTEON devices ( a replacement for a similar but more antiquated system: X-10)

My question for you guys is this,
How many of you have any lighting control devices in your homes.
And if so what systems are you using and to what extent do you have your systems administering your home automation needs.
I'd like to start this thread with the intention of discussing all things home automation within.

I started my own system with just a few lamp modules and a couple remotes, from a cheapo system GE came out with.
It worked fine for turning off those last few lights from bed.
I am now ready to start building a serious integrated system, much like my friends.  Only in stages.

Of course one of the primary sources of info and products is Smarthome

[AmbulanceDriver]

Well, my brother is the head of Home Automation for the company he works for.  I'll have to ask him, but I believe that he mostly uses Lutron stuff for lighting control.  It's pretty nice.  I don't remember who makes the rest of the stuff he has, but I know that's the lighting control. 

I'll ask him for some more info.  But as far as how far he's taken this, some of the homes he's done have their entire home wired into the web, and can be entirely controlled from a remote site.  Pretty slick stuff.  We were over there one day when one of his customer's in Palm Beach called up having a problem.  He logged into their house from his couch, figured out what was going on (someone had been playing with configuration settings that they shouldn't have), and fixed the problem.  Granted, the homeowner had set up the equipment with a special admin password for my brother to use while they got used to their new equipment, but that doesn't have to be set up. 

[K Frame]

I have lighting control devices in my home.

They're called light switches.

I actually have a couple of the X10 units. I was using them, but decided to remove them when I heard about one of the units melting down and starting a fire.

[Sindawe]

I have lighting control devices in my home.

They're called light switches.

Same here. The only sort of automation I have in the home is the thermostat and the timers for the lights on the aquarium.

[Fly320s]

I have a basic Insteon controlled motion detector for my porch lights.  The motion detector sends a signal to the Insteon controller which turns on the light via the new switch that I wired in.  It is simple, but works well enough.

I'd like to have a house wired like your friend, veloce, but I think I'll wait to do that when I build my own house.  A new install will work much better than a retrofit, I think.  Considering how much I'm away from home, I really like being able to monitor my house from anywhere.

[Gewehr98]

About the most I've done is have the outdoor security cameras feed into the home intranet, so that each computer can simply bring up a web browser and see what's going on outside.

I did something similar in Florida, and had a webcam facing the ocean so I could see what was going on at home when I evacuated to a different base.  My fellow evacuees made that a favorite URL until the power in Satellite Beach went out.

My ex-roomate in Florida had one of the Radio Shack systems with all the house lights controlled by little consoles placed throughout the house.

He also had one of those neat Heathkit Digital Weather Stations with all the red LED displays.  I'd like to find a complete version of one of those, complete with weathervane and anemometer.