A Typical Smart Home Project

You’ll probably know from what you’ve read here on our website, there are so many different ways to smarten up your home with Home Automation: lighting scenes, multiroom audio, intelligent heating control, central functions… The list goes on (and on). But it’s probably not practical to have everything all in one house. Unless you live in a mansion, of course. So where do you start?

Let’s imagine a typical Loxone project and run through 3 Smart Home basics and the components and costs needed to set them up. It should hopefully give you an idea of the typical Smart Home project.

OUR ‘AVERAGE’ HOUSE

To give you an idea about the components needed, let’s imagine a house. A modest but comfortably-sized place for a small family. We’re talking:

• 150sq metres
• 2 adults, 2 children
• 1 double bedroom w/ built-in wardrobe
• 2 single bedrooms
• 1 living room
• A joined kitchen & dining area
• 1 bathroom
• 1 downstairs toilet
• Garage
• & Basement

A nice, normal place. Now, time to transform it into a Smart Home …

THE SMART HOME BASICS

As we say, you can pretty much control everything in a true Smart Home. And things can get pretty clever and impressive. But, for us, there are three basics that you shouldn’t do without in any automated home. And here there are:

BASIC #1: MORE THAN JUST SHADING

In a truly Smart Home, you should never have to touch your blinds or curtains (except to clean them, of course!). Full automation would have them opening and closing automatically depending on the sun/daylight and position of the sun in the sky. If you happen to have shaders on the outside of your windows, wind sensors recording wind speed and strength can be set up to inform the Miniserver as to the position the blinds should be in, too.

It could be that the position wanted for curtains and/or blinds is to be dependant on how warm it is. A temperature sensor in each room will measure the heat and adjust the blinds/curtains accordingly. After all, there’s little point letting sunlight stream through the windows if it’s already pretty warm inside, is there?

BASIC #2: ALWAYS THE PERFECT TEMPERATURE

A perfect temperature can be guaranteed all year round in a Miniserver-controlled home. The temperature sensors installed for the curtains and blinds in summer can be utilised in winter to determine how much output is needed from the heating system for individual room control. Let’s say that the family in our imaginary house like it a cool 19°c in the bedrooms, but the rest of the house a slightly cosier 22°c, sensors in each room can monitor and direct the Miniserver to keep it how you want.

With our actuators and the relevant valve adaptor, whether it’s underfloor heating or radiators warming the house, you can be guaranteed the exact temperature. And what’s more – the self-learning heating control knows when it needs heat to kick in to get a room for a certain time at a comfortable temperature. So you know it’s always going to hit the temperature without delay!

BASIC #3: LIGHTS, ACTION!

Leaving lights on in rooms no one’s in is one of the best ways to waste energy. In a Smart Home, it’s all but impossible…

How? Presence detectors subtly hidden in ceilings. Hooked up to the Miniserver, they’ll know whether it’s dark enough to warrant turning on using day/date/coordinate data to determine brightness.

It’s also possible to dim any light by smartphone or tablet manually or set lower lights as part of a lighting scene.

Automatic blinds and curtains, comfortable temperatures and optimum lighting. The ‘typical’ Smart Home is taking shape. So, to the shop…

OUR SHOPPING LIST

Virtually all of this can be implemented with our components. Almost everything you’d need to set up these things can be bought from our Webshop (see below). The Loxone Config you need to set it all up and the apps you need to control everything are entirely free.

Here’s what you will need to get your wallet out for:

* All prices exclude VAT

Pretty impressive, eh? A truly Smart Home needn’t cost the Earth. And Loxone are here to assist in any way we can. Check out our online documentation, online seminars, forum and sample configurations. Plus, of course, you’re always welcome to call us and speak to Support.

But perhaps the best way to proceed with your project is to put it in the hands of the professionals and find one of our trained and expert partners. Find out where your nearest one is here now…