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What is Home Automation?
Home automation refers to the control and operation of features, appliances, and activities in the home automatically, via the internet, remotely, or while at home for convenience and security. The main goal of automation is to either eliminate or reduce the level of human involvement or assistance in completing a task or procedure.
Control and operation can be done using smart phones and include appliances connected to a home network like lights, cooling and heating systems, and security devices like cameras, locks, and alarm systems, essentially turning the home into a Smart Home.
Several wireless communication technologies exist that can be used for home automation. They can either use existing infrastructure to provide wired connections between end devices and controllers or be completely wireless, requiring no pre-installed cabling whatsoever.
Some common wireless technologies used in home automation include infrared, radio frequency, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Li-Fi, Zigbee, and Z-Wave, among others.
While contemplating the purchase or acquisition of any home appliance, it’s important to know that the wide variety of different smart devices have different compatibilities, and careful consideration has to be made when selecting protocols to work with.
Depending on cost, ease of use, and compatibility, a home owner or automation integrator can decide to use either one or a combination of these wireless technologies.
Wireless technologies used in Home Automation
Wi-Fi, based on the IEE 802.11 standard, can operate on 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz unlicensed ISM frequency bands and is one of the most widely used home automation technologies. It allows Wi-Fi-capable devices to connect directly to the internet via the Wi-Fi router. Devices can be managed individually, in a stand-alone manner, or via a central hub.
It offers a coverage range of up to 100 meters while providing reliable, high-speed, and secure communications.
The cost and power consumption requirements of Wi-Fi-enabled products are generally higher than those of other short-range wireless technologies like Z-Wave and Zigbee.
While it was initially used for commercial purposes, Zigbee, which is gaining popularity in residential applications, is a low-cost, low-power technology with a similar working concept to Bluetooth personal area networks. It’s designed for functions where data transfer rate is less important than power effectiveness and ad hoc channelling, and it can be deployed in a mesh network to increase coverage range.
A typical Zigbee transmission range can be up to 100 meters depending on power output and environmental characteristics, though with Zigbee Pro, it can be extended up to 1,000 meters and is used in networks that require low data rates (up to 250 kbps) and long battery life.
It operates in the 800 MHz band in Europe, the 915 MHz band in North America, and the 2.4 GHz ISM band used worldwide.
Bluetooth is based on the IEEE 802.15.1 standard and is used for short-range interconnection of mobile devices and a variety of electronic devices by creating a personal network and operating on the 2.4 GHz unlicensed ISM band.
The one downside of Bluetooth is that it has no strong security layer to prevent eavesdropping, thus falling short of security requirements compared to other wireless standards. It has commonly been used in applications requiring short-distance communications and file transfers. Common home automation applications include smart light bulbs and smart locks.
It provides a data rate of up to 21 kbps and has a transmission coverage of 10 meters or 30 feet with a data rate of 1 Mbps. Commercial Bluetooth, Class 1, is the longest Bluetooth classification that can support a range of up to 300 feet or 100 meters. The maximum communication range can vary depending on environmental factors like physical obstacles or electromagnetism.
Z-Wave is a wireless radio frequency technology based on a mesh network topology that enables smart devices to talk to and connect with one another. It is a low-power, low-cost wireless technology that provides short-range interoperability among smart home systems from different manufacturers that are part of the Z-Wave association.
It can support a data rate of up to 40 kbps and a coverage of up to 30 meters, and it is designed for remote control applications in residential and light commercial applications.
It operates in the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz unlicensed bands, with the former being used in North America and the latter being used in the rest of the world.
Radio frequency, or RFID (radio frequency identification), is another increasingly popular technology that uses frequencies ranging from 30 kHz to 10 GHz.
It has a data rate of up to 4 Mbps and can interoperate with other technologies like Wi-Fi and Zigbee.
Simply known as IR, it’s a technology in the region of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum that carries data through infrared radiation. Infrared waves are shorter than radio waves but longer than visible light waves.
It’s common in many consumer electronics, including security systems, TV remote controls, and short-range communications.
Li-Fi, short for Light Fidelity is a bi-directional wireless system that transmits data via infrared light, or LED. It can be used in explosion-hazard applications where mobile phones might pose a hazard and are therefore restricted, like airplanes or hospitals. Unlike radio frequency waves, Li-Fi can be used with very little interference.
It’s an integrated dual-mesh home automation network system, launched in 2005, that combines radio frequency and a home’s existing electrical wiring to control lights, sensors, and electrical devices. It’s based on mesh networking technology, where each device transmits signals individually.
UPB, which stands for Universal Powerline Bus, is another home automation technology that uses the existing powerline in the home to carry control signals, eliminating the need for additional cabling and wiring.
It’s another mesh networking technology based on future-proof IPV6 that connects smart devices like motion sensors, locks, and lights. It usually comes built into the smart devices and requires a Thread border router to connect the Thread network to the home Wi-Fi.
EnOcean is a type of energy-harvesting wireless technology where EnOcean transmitters generate their power from the environment, like indoor and ambient light and temperature differences.
EnOcean devices operate at the 902 MHz, 928.35 MHz, 88.3 MHz, and 315 MHz frequencies. It can support up to 30 meters of indoor coverage and a 300-meter outdoor coverage range with a data rate of up to 125 kbps.
This enables wireless and battery-less devices like sensors to work as they harvest the ultra-low energy they need from the environment, making implementation and operation easy and flexible. This makes it significantly less costly in terms of installation and maintenance. It’s more energy efficient than other wireless technologies like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Zigbee.
Also known as IPV6, Low-power Personal Area Network, is a low-power wireless mesh network where every node, e.g., sensor or camera, has its own IPV6 address, allowing it to connect directly to the internet, making it ideal for the home automation market.
It supports data rates of between 20 kbps and 250 kbps, depending on the frequency and distances between 10 and 100 meters. It can operate in the 2.4 GHz and sub-1 GHz bands and can support a large mesh network topology with very low power consumption.
Wave2M
It’s designed for ultra-low-power energy consumption with long-range data transmission and low-traffic communications.
It can provide a coverage range of up to 1000 meters and supports data rates from 4.8 kbps to 100 kbps, though most Wave2M applications operate at 19.2 kbps.
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Popular home automation systems that use one or a combination of the above technologies include:
Amazon Echo with Alexa, which uses BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) mesh wireless communication technology,
Apple HomeKit which uses Bluetooth and Wi-Fi protocols, and in some cases, Thread.
Google Nest Hub which uses a mesh network technology uses Wi-Fi and Thread.
Philips Hue Lighting which uses Zigbee.
Samsung Smart Things which uses Wi-Fi, Zigbee, and Z-Wave
Slim Bz Techsystems : Nairobi, Kenya
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