Is it Time to Implement Home Automation?
After reading up on a post about home automation, I have decided to, over the course of the next few weeks/months and even years, to try and implement automation in my house and try to combine them altogether to make my home more “smart”! This will include adding IP cameras, electricity monitoring devices, automatic garage door openers using a smartphone, and many more smart devices! And over this course of time, I will also be blogging about every single “smart” thing or device I add to my home during my: Extreme Home Makeover: Smart Edition!
I have also specifically made a new ‘category’ page called “Home Automation”. This new ‘category’ page will be added to the top of our menu bar, and in this ‘category’ will be all the posts and articles I make about our Extreme Home Makeover: Smart Edition! Also during the sharing of our home automation posts and articles, the hashtag “#HomeAutomation” will be used to indicate our articles and posts.
I will mainly be looking for devices that have Z-Wave compatibility, and probably also that one or two or few odd devices that provide great home automation while using smartphones and PCs and maybe even remote access, that may not have Z-Wave built-in.
I prefer Z-Wave over Zigbee well because first of all, it supports full interoperability, which means all types of Z-Wave devices I buy can communicate with any other Z-Wave device I buy, if they are on the correct Z-Wave frequencies. Also, there are currently a lot more Z-Wave enabled devices meaning I have more choices/options. Besides, ZigBee’s radio frequency operates on the already-crowded 2.4GHz which is used for WiFi, Bluetooth etc, which may create interference around here, as there are a lot of SSIDs around in my area!
To start things off, I have come across a neat device that lets you control your garage door straight from your smartphone! Oh and this device doesn’t have Z-Wave unfortunately, but I quite like the user interface, and how easy it is to use!
This device will work with a lot, if not all, existing garage doors. It also shows you if the garage door is currently opened or closed and has remote access, meaning that if you are away from home and you have somehow remembered that you’d accidentally left your garage door open (I know, somewhat crazy you’d think?!), you can remotely close the garage door right where you are, even if away from home! The device I am talking about is called the GoGogate and you can purchase it here and ship it to NZ using NZ Post’s YouShop service. For approximately $230 delivered to your doorstep in NZ, the price is a bit steep, but considering it could be a potential disaster averter (a huge security issue if your garage door is left wide open!) it may well be worth the money for the long run!
There are quite a number of options you can choose to buy and then do-it-yourself installation, which is what I am quite happy to do, and this project will be a great fun project to do in the weekends for example!
If you are a company of home automation and are able help out with our project financially and or through your own products, please contact me and we can try to work something out!
And so for our readers: do you have any suggestions on what “smart” devices I should buy? Please leave your suggestions down in the comments box below!
