[ Spotlight: Smart homes ]
Smart controls can help boost energy effi ciency
Trials in other countries show that simply having a smart meter in the home can cut bills by fi ve to 10 per cent
Legrand control panel
of energy monitoring is a good thing, and we are moving closer to a situation where this will be commonplace in all homes. It comes back to what a smart home should be and, today, buildings need to be just as energy effi cient as they are lifestyle enhancing.’
Form and function A smart meter provides almost real-time, direct two- way communication between electricity and gas meters and utility companies. This enables utilities to remotely measure how much electricity consumers are using, and send signals back to the meter. They are, however, not to be confused with the devices used for automatic meter reading (AMR), which is the
Setting the standards
There have been many attempts to standardise the forms of hardware, electronic and communication interfaces needed to construct a smart home system. Domestic wiring and communication standards include:
BACnet BACnet was designed to allow communication of building automation and control systems for applications such as heating, ventilating, and air- conditioning control, lighting control, access control and fi re-detection systems.
X10 X10 is an international and open industry protocol that primarily uses power line wiring for signalling and control. The signals involve brief radio frequency bursts representing digital information.
Insteon Insteon is a system for connecting lighting switches and loads without extra wiring. Similar to X10, it is designed specifi cally to address the inherent limitations in the X10 standard, but also to incorporate backward compatibility with it.
KNX KNX is a standardised OSI-based protocol that is the successor to, and convergence of, three previous standards – the European Home Systems protocol, BatiBus and the European Installation Bus.
LonWorks LonWorks was created to address the needs of control applications. The platform is built on a protocol for networking devices over media such as
twisted pair, powerlines, fi bre optics and radio frequency.
Universal powerline bus (UPB) Based on the concept of the X10 standard, UPB has an improved transmission rate and higher reliability.
ZigBee ZigBee is a specifi cation for a suite of high-level communication protocols based on the IEEE 802.15.4-2003 standard for wireless home area networks.
Z-Wave Z-Wave is a proprietary wireless communications protocol to remote control applications in residential and light-commercial environments. It uses a low-power RF radio embedded or retrofi tted into home electronics devices and systems.
Smart-home technology can About the author
Rob Shepherd is a freelance journalist and regular contributor to ECA Today. He has worked in the electrical contracting industry for more than 14 years.
deliver entertainment throughout a home
March 2014 ECA Today 35
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