It’s inevitable that wireless will become a standard feature in major home systems. Although this is taking a while, the needs and market drivers are obvious.
Being a gadget freak, I am a big fan of home automation as a concept. It would be great to get everything that makes sense (I’m still not sure about refrigerators and washing machines, for example) on the home LAN, and, by implication, the Web. As was reinforced by my visit to CEDIA this year, all major home systems – lighting, entertainment, security, energy, communications, and environmental – are candidates for representation on the home network. This was recently driven home, so to speak, by an upgrade project at my house.
My home boiler (I have hot-water, natural-gas baseboard heat) had reached 30 years of age, and the water heater was pushing 13 years, so it became clear that some major replacements would be required in the not-too-distant future. A little research showed that very-high-efficiency solutions (96%) were now common, and I’d bet the efficiency of my stuff was probably way, way less than that. Being one who believes that resources shouldn’t be wasted (along with the dollars that pay for these, of course), I eventually settled on a wall-mount, high-efficiency boiler with an indirect hot-water system.
My chosen solution was the Lochinvar Knight boiler with associated Squire domestic hot water tank. There’s a lot of custom plumbing required for such a solution (the result is reminiscent of many commercial installations I’ve seen over the years; and a big thank-you to Stone’s Plumbing and Heating for such a fine job of design and installation), but it’s up and running now and so far I’m very pleased. And one of the reasons the Knight appealed to me is the integrated LCD panel for status display and programming (and there’s potentially a lot to program here). There’s also a USB port and PC software available.
But – wouldn’t it be nice to have Wi-Fi built in? I envision this as a client connecting to a home router with such connection initiated in the usual way via the LCD panel or via an HTTPS connection over the USB port (or maybe an Ethernet port would be nice as well). The result, regardless, would be to have all control and monitoring functions available on any browser-based device in the house – and, perhaps more importantly, available to service personnel as well. In the event of a problem or the need or desire for an adjustment, I could simply call or otherwise contact my plumber or a service center, and they could address whatever the issue might be simply and cost-effectively. Such might even be part of a service plan or other contractual or warranty arrangement. Everyone goes (or stays) home happy.
It’s amazing how long it takes for technologies like wireless and home environmental systems to converge – but I’m sure they will. The big question, by the way, is whether the residential links involved will be Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Insteon, Z-Wave, or perhaps something else. I’m studying this issue now and will have more for you later.
