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Somewhere in this weekend’s travel, we were discussing the Jetsons, predicting the future, and why we weren’t all zooming around in our personal jetpacks. Mom A. was commenting that in the Jetsons, Rosie would hit a button on the wall and coffee would just materialize. While not quite as anthropmorphic as Rosie (though that’s debatable), it appears my “Mac could go a long way toward automating our house”:http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/02/13/home_automation.html.

We already use motion detectors in the garage, and I’d love to install more of this equipment around the house, primarily as a way of improving energy efficency. Anyone that knows me knows that remembering is not my strong suit, and I find lights left on around the house on a far to frequent basis. Additionally, the wiring of some of our lights is rather odd.

For example, our dining room is the point of entry from the garage–when Kelly and I get home, it’s the first room of the house we come into. That room has two light switches (on opposite sides of the room) and a dimmer switch (on the wall opposite the garage door). The two light switches are not wired as part of a two-way switch, meaning both of them have to switched on for the light to work. If the switch opposite the garage door is turned off, you end up stumbling about in the dark to walk across that room and turn it on. Finally, the separate dimmer switch just means one more switch to clutter the wall with. If I’d wired the room from the beginning, both switches would be on a two-way circuit, and both would be dimmers. I’m sure everyone can think of situations in their house where the switches are just not conveniently located.

What I love about home automation is that it’s a modular system. You don’t have to buy everything up front; you can slowly build up a complete system. I think I’ll be asking for automation pieces for my next few birthdays and Christmas. Assuming I get permission from Kelly to do all this

written by Kyle