Another thing we need before we look at tools is the target system. This article describes a medium sized system without going overboard.
The biggest concern for HAS is reliability and performance. In a home scalability of users is not an issue. I just do not know of a home with 100s much less 1000s of residents. On the device side the largest home we did was 48k sq/ft with at most several dozen control systems or subsystems. These subsystems then controlled several hundred devices. All in all the bandwidth usage was minimal. A smaller home (3k – 5k sq/ft) like my own would consist of at most 50-75 devices including counting each individual electrical load.
Let’s take a look at a typical family home. According to National Associate of Home Builders for 2004 the average was 2,349 sq/ft for a new single family home. In addition, over a third of new homes have more than 2400 sq/ft and 4 or more bedrooms. So our hypothetical home will be a 4 bedroom home. It will contain:
- 4 bedrooms
- Master Suite
- 2 kids room
- Guest room
- 2 1/2 bathrooms
- Kitchen
- Living Room
- Dining Room
- Den/Media Room
- Patio
- Pool
The devices and subsystems to control:
- 2 zone HVAC
- 35 light loads
- 8 zone audio including the outside
- Master Suite
- 2 kids room
- Guest room
- Kitchen
- Living Room
- Dining Room
- Den/Media Room
- Patio
- 4 zones of video
- Master Suite
- 2 kids room
- Guest room
- Den/Media Room
- Matrix Switch w/volume control
- A/V Receiver for Den/Media Room (9th audio zone and 5th video zone)
- Radio Tuner
- DVD/CD Player
- 4 MP3 Players (Roku, Windows Media Player, iPod type device)
- 2 Video Players (Roku or Windows Media Extenders type device)
- 2 Satellites w/PVR
- Pool pump
- Sprinkler system
- 2 video cameras (front door and backyard)
- Security System
- InWall touch panel at the front hall
- RF/IR remotes for the den/media room, and 4 bedrooms
- Control System either PC based or hardware based like Crestron or AMX
This is a pretty complete setup for most people. You could go crazy adding addition things like weather station, water sensors, etc but for now it makes a reasonable target.
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