 Be the
Master
of Your Domain:
Home automation systems
make
home management
easier than ever
by Janis Turk
photography
by Robert French
If you thought VCRs were hard to program in the ‘80s and it’s all been spiraling downward since then — retrieving cell phone messages, accessing E-mail, programming the TiVo — you’re not alone. Wouldn’t it be great if technology could truly be “user-friendly” and do basic, practical things to make life easier? Well, now it is!
Imagine, almost magically, without touching a button, soft music and low lights come on and your fireplace begins burning the moment you get home from work. When it’s time for bed, all your house lights turn themselves off as the porch light glows. Dinner starts cooking 10 minutes before you get home from church. The garage door opens just before you turn onto your street. You can water the yard and turn on porch lights while out of town — and the neighbors don’t have to do it for you. Imagine, too, all your old record albums, CDs, DVDs and videos at your fingertips without your having to dig through cluttered cabinets.
If all that sounds like something out of science fiction, it’s not. Welcome to the 21st cen-tury with a new wave in technology that really is as handy as it is innovative and as helpful as it is simple! In fact, today’s home automation systems can do everything your doggie can — including bringing you in the newspaper and having slippers delivered to your front door.
Since the development of dimmers for light switches and automatic timers for coffee makers, home automation systems have come a long way. Today’s technology utilizes computer touch screens or control panels that allow homeowners to access their entire house, either from a central location in the home, from a remote control, from an office computer or even from a cellular phone. Large image-based buttons and simple menus make using such systems easy for everyone, and there’s so much your house can do for you now, according to Matt Rasmussen, vice president of Zenpanion: The Next Step in Home Automation Systems of San Antonio.
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