home automation
Whole House Lighting Control System
Great lighting can really make a house feel like a home. While we tend to focus on the energy efficiency and design of lamps and bulbs, often we neglect to consider the actual electrical system in the house. Whole House Lighting Control System by Verve Living Systems brings a whole new element to eco-friendly lighting.
A wireless lighting system that works via radio frequencies without the need for batteries, it works by routing all lighting to a programmable central controller. Each switch transmits a ‘blip’ of a radio transmission to the central hub up to 300 feet away, get this: by using the energy from the act of flipping the switch. That’s right, the switch itself powers the transmission without needing batteries or its own power source, so they are completely independent and self sustained units. This allows them to be mounted anywhere, you could even just carry it around in your pocket if you want.
By eliminating the need for light switch wiring and having a central hub to control lighting of the entire home, one can program an endless combination of lighting scenarios, and change it without having to do any re-wiring. The energy saving opportunities are equally as enticing. A one switch shutoff for the entire house so you won’t have to worry about that closet light you forgot to turn off.
Verve Lighting Control Unit
The benefits of the system are endless. Not only does it greatly reduce lighting install time, labor, and cost due to the lack of a need for wiring switches, but the switches can be installed anywhere, and moved at any time. The system is completely programmable, so you can change the operation of each switch, or group lighting elements together. Imagine turning on one switch and having your entryway, driveway and garage lights all turn on at once, and then be able to click a button in your car to just turn on the driveway and garage lights only.
Ecobee Energy Efficient WiFi Programable Thermostat
A blend of energy efficient smarts and technological geek, this is a really cool product- if you know how to use it. The great thing is that no matter what, it will save you energy and bucks on your heating and cooling bills. A beautiful interface and clean design would compliment most any interior in some fashion as it has the appearance of a small flat screen TV. What really makes it unique is the WiFi feature, and this is where it starts to get interesting.
Once hooked up to your home network via WiFi, it can do a lot, and I mean A LOT. It has a personalized web portal which you can program your heating and cooling routine into, just as with most programmable thermostats, but this goes a bit further. You are able to control much more through this interface, enabling all kinds of home automation. With additional ZigBee expansion slots in the unit, you can automate all kinds of things.
What really gets the techie in me excited is the ability to do all of this remotely, from anywhere with a internet connection. Say you are at the office and you are going to be home early and are dreading a cold house. No problem! Send an email or login to your web portal and adjust the temp just right. Now with web based phones, you can even do this upon landing at the airport on the way to baggage claim. Never have you had so much control over your thermostat. Makes saving energy that much more fun! Priced at $385, it’s not your everyday run of the mill gadget- however, the manufacturer states that the unit will pay for itself in energy savings within the first 12 to 18 months. I would guess that would be based on replacement of a manual unit, but you can decide for yourself. Check out all of the tutorial and demo videos at www.ecobee.com.
[Sourced from: engaget]
