Automation Systems

Springtime Already? This year, for the first time in a hundred years, we welcomed the Spring season a few days early on March 19th. With everything going on right now, it sure doesn't feel like Spring! Nonetheless, to keep things upbeat, here are my favorite tips for sprucing up your smart home this time of year if you’re tired of Netflix and Youtube.   Check And Update Firmware Everything seems to need firmware updates these days - even the darn toaster oven! Check all your devices - computers, smartphones, tablets and of course, of your Internet of Things (IoT) smart devices and make sure they have the latest firmware upgrades. Proceed cautiously - read the release notes or upgrade notifications and make sure you understand what changes are included. Better security and new features are good to have, but not if stable/reliable equipment becomes buggy and problematic. The old adage “ain’t broke, don't fix it" is tempting, but with proper attention to the details you’ll gain more by keeping your devices up to date with very little risk.   Label Everything Time to go Marie Kondo and get out your label machine or markers and tape. Label every network cable, serial cable, HDMI cable, and connector. It may seem tedious, but trust me, it is really useful when 6 months from now you are replacing a piece of equipment, upgrading, or just physically moving everything around. Nothing saves heartache and hours of "What did I do?" or "What was I …

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Don't Ignore Power Cables Previously I gave some tips on how to label wires and connections to clean up and better manage all your smart home device connections. I want to add one more thing - Don’t ignore power cables. Ethernet cables, video cables, and USB cables tend to get all of our attention. After all, power cables are standardized and look identical, right? Power cords also come in different, wait for it, power ratings. The maximum amperage varies with the quality of the cable and the equipment. A power hungry audio video amplifier may need a bigger cord than an automation hub or controller.   Too Detail Oriented? Labelling low voltage power cords used to be something I safely ignored. But I have avoided several problems and made equipment swaps much easier by labelling those thin cables going from the plug-in wall-wart or on the floor brick style power supply modules. Anyone that has agonized over “center positive or center negative” when looking for a replacement direct current (DC) power supply has been there. Save yourself the hassle by labelling all power cords with the both the voltage, polarity, and the name of the device or equipment it is intended. Although many low voltage devices now use standard USB or micro-USB connectors; different devices have very different power and amperage requirements. The new reversible, never-plug-it-in-backwards-again USB-C style connectors also have a variety of voltage and current …

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“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” Mark Twain It’s a bad time to be a smart home hub, because if you believe the trade press and media, you’re dead! I wrote about this over a year ago ( Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Hub? ) but I guess the editors didn’t get the memo! This year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2019 edition just wrapped up a few weeks ago in Las Vegas. Almost two hundred thousand people came to town to try and cover almost 3 million square feet of exhibit space and visit over 4500 exhibitors. (I stayed home.) As some of you know from reading here, I try to avoid covering current events or news stories because they are well documented elsewhere. I won’t hype the latest vaporware or fad (and there are always tons of them at CES), but I am upset that the totally false narrative about the “death of the hub” seems to be one of the big takeaways by the idiots that claim to be home automation professional journalists. Why The Negative Hype About Smart Home Hubs? In a word - boredom. This year’s CES did not have any revolutionary new smart home products. No big breakthroughs to “write home about”. Bloggers and media people don’t care about what you and I want - real improvements, even if incremental, that move the home automation industry forward by solving the humdrum, boring, but serious problems or impediments to using technology to make our lives better in our homes. Bloggers are always looking for “click bait” - that sensational sound bite (real or …

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Back The Truck Up Before specializing in smart homes and home automation systems, I started my business providing technology consulting to individuals and medium sized companies.  You can see the details at rsdevelopmentgroup.com, my corporate parent. My early years working in the technology industry were focused on the IBM PC and compatible systems, while in the last five years I have spent a lot of time working with Apple computers and systems, but what I am writing about this week is applicable to all systems and platforms.   It’s Broke, Fix It! Having been called into many clients homes or offices to not just help them, but actually fix their computer problems, I’d like to share my favorite secret computing tip. With smart home systems, a lot of my time is spent working with devices (or “gadgets”), but ultimately everything connects back to the ubiquitous personal computer, so I hope you don’t mind this slight diversion. Nature vs Nurture In Psychology, there is the age-old debate of whether one’s particular behavior is intrinsic (natural or inherited) or a learned behavior (nurtured by our environment of upbringing). With desktop computing, I saw that Windows users and Mac users approached using their computers in different ways.  Often this was due to the reliability (or lack thereof) in performing some tasks or the ease of use of performing others. There are both similarities and differences between macOS and Windows or iOS and Android, but I’m …

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Like Fixing A Hole In The Roof Recently, I had the fun chore of finding and fixing two broken irrigation pipes for our sprinkler system. It seems every year, without fail, there is always a broken sprinkler head to adjust or replace, but this time, two different zones were not getting any water at all. As I ran back and forth, multiple times, between the ancient controller box on the garage wall and the different irrigation zones in the backyard, my thoughts turned to the same question - Is it time to install a smart(er) sprinkler controller? Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It Remember the children’s joke about the farmer with a hole in his roof? During a rainstorm, his wife asks him to fix the leak.  The farmer explains that he can’t fix it while it is raining. So after the storm, wife reminds him to fix the leak and he replies “Why should I bother, it’s not raining?” I’m reminded of this every time I think about the expense (and honestly mostly the time and effort) to replace my classic sprinkler controller with a modern smarter one. I say “smarter” because the controller i have has a small LCD display, some buttons, a dial, and a basic microprocessor inside that remembers zone settings and watering times along with a running schedule. Realistically, there isn’t much more that is needed.  Even the newest, smartest units are ultimately designed to do the same thing. This is really a case of “ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.  So why am I tempted? Set It And Forget …

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