Home Automation Overview

We all know Automation means doing any task without human intervention, So Home automation term stands for “Controlling Home appliances / any Gadgets in home without/ negligible human efforts”.  Home Automation makes life easier and it also a step toward future, to make tasks easier, and live a luxurious life.

In Early life this Automation was done with the help of Small Robots. In 20^th Century it is rising rapidly and Home Automation industry is also growing very fast. Almost All Big Market Players like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Samsung are trying to get into this vast and bright Home Automation Field. Because it is the Future!

We can control Light Switches / Bulbs of our Home through your Mobile Application, sitting at another place, even at any place in the world.

• Can Increase security of our Home with this type of Home Automation by Cameras / Alarms .

• Can set Buzzer when there is any leakage in our home / Office.

• Can see what our baby is doing at home while sitting in the office.

Similarly there are endless of usage of Home Automation even in large Offices / Industries.

Home Automation System:

There are various types of Home Automation Systems are available in the market. But a Typical Home Automation System is made of:

1.       Devices (For Example Bulbs / Switched / Sensors / Heaters )

2.       A Central Controller , with whom all devices are paired

3.       Routers / Bridges  (Optional )

4.       Host Application (Depending upon need)

  

A Typical Home Automation System performs Following Tasks:

• Centralized control of lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning)

• Appliances, security locks of gates and doors

• Audio & Visual Support

Technology in Home Automation:

 In any home System there can be n number of devices. To control all those devices , there must be a communication protocol , which every device has to follow.

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are Most Popular communication Protocol, which is used for communication between two / more devices. These are IEEE 802 Standard and followed worldwide .it also have a wide range of manufacturers, which follow these standards to manufacture devices in Home Automation.

As the number of devices rises, the inter connection between those devices and communication between those devices become complex . Then various problems may occur due to Large number of devices like  Heating, Security etc. To overcome those Disadvantages , various methods / Standards /Protocols wee developed by various manufacturers.

Apart from Bluetooth and Wi-Fi there are several other standards / Protocols, which are used in Home Automation. List of some famous standards are as follows:

X10
Zigbee
Z-Wave
KNX
Insteon
EnOcean

In these above mentioned protocols , Some are Wired protocols  , which can be used with the power Lines in houses / offices . Some are wireless , As we are aware with Bluetooth , Wi - Fi most popular communication protocols . And some supports wired + wireless both.

with reference to a blog Big Technology Giant Apple also stepping into Home automation market and recently it has launched A framework named Apple homekit framework .
For more details Visit Techieswagger

Detail Studies about these protocols can be found click here.
List of Top Homekit Compliant devices
Thanks :)