Home Automation

The connected home and home automation is starting to gain some traction, and I'm deadly interested in being able to automate my home. On the one hand I dream of the days where our lives will be like the Jetsons, and on the other hand I'm running out of time in my life to do the small things.

There's a lot of definitions around the connected home, and I don't know whether they would all apply to me. I like to think of Home Automation as something that will give you more time in your life by automating some of the common things that you would do during a day at home.

I previously tried to do some home automation but there was a lot of fiddling around. And, the interface to control many of the devices around your home was not as user friendly. And, in a home where you are trying to convince your better half that it will make their lives easier, a simple thing such as a remote or a computer really is a hard sell.

But now, it is 2017. We now have access to a wide variety of methods to use to interface with Home Automation tools. My favorite is the Google Home or the Amazon Echo, they provide not only the voice commands to interact with a various number of devices but also enable me to interface with a wide variety of devices. This, I believe, is fundamental in having a connected home. The voice is something that many people have - and it is not something that you have to fumble around like a remote or your phone. Its quick and responsive.

Secondly, it 2017. We all would have accumulated a wide variety of smart phones over the years. Some people may have ended up selling their smartphones, trading it in, or handing it away. However, in my case I have managed to save about 5-6 smart phones (one of which is an iPhone, which I'm only using as a music player for a dock). However, these smartphones are fundamentally a computer in your pocket with a phone feature. Many of these devices are also very powerful, more powerful for what they at times needed to be. My goal is to look to re-purpose these phones as touch interfaces that I can mount to the wall etc... And to do this, I want to get rid of the exterior of phone and build out a common cohesive casing that I can place the inside components and only showing the touch interface - one that can be mounted to a wall and still look aesthetically pleasing.

Finally, it is 2017. The start ups have increased over the years. With sites such as Kickstarter and Indigogo there are many startups being able to show their ideas and also crowd source funding to launch their products. 

This series of blog posts will be dedicated towards Home Automation, I'll talk through which area that I'm looking to automate and also my thought process on the type of products.

I hope this will help others in venturing into the Connected Home/Home Automation area.

Stay Tuned.