Smart Home Hacks

Chapter 7. Advanced Techniques

Hacks 83–100

The hacks in this chapter represent the most creative, innovative, and often useful techniques for improving your home automation system. If you’re interested in seeing what makes home automators tick, just dive into hacks that enable you to access your system from other computers on your home network [Hack #99], view information about your home using a calendar [Hack #91] or a chart [Hack #92], and get the most out of your motion detectors [Hack #85]. But lest you think this all sounds too serious, be sure to learn how you can have your kid’s hamster earn his keep [Hack #89].

Improve the Response Time of Motion Detectors

Replacing your transceivers with a direct-to-computer wireless receiver greatly improves the response time from motion detectors.

The standard X10 transceivers used to translate wireless commands [Hack #5] to X10 power-line commands are inexpensive and reliable, but they’re not very convenient. Not only do you need to have a separate transceiver for each house code you use, but they’re also slow. Their design introduces a brief delay as it translates the wireless command to its X10 equivalent, and that’s in addition to the delay already inherent in the X10 protocol. Also, if you have many wireless devices sending signals at the same time, such as multiple motion detectors, the resulting X10 commands can flood the power line and cause some signals to be lost or further delayed. Fortunately, you can avoid these problems by ...