The term smart home is all over the media recently and increasingly we are being marketed smart home products. Many homeowners have started experimenting with some of these devices and have mixed results. It is common to have separate devices like colored lights, smart door locks, video doorbells, etc. These devices don’t always work on the same platform, work inconsistently, and require others in the home to change their behaviors – “Don’t touch that light switch! You have to use the app!”
These are not systems and they are definitely not smart!
Many of these systems will also attempt to lock you into a proprietary environment where you are forced to pay monthly fees, sometimes even have to pay for remote access, and the equipment in your house will not work without staying in their proprietary system.
What is a smart home system?
A proper smart home system controls everything from one platform. Nobody wants to have to use multiple apps to control things in their house. Any interaction with a smart home system should be easy to accomplish through a single app on a phone, tablet, or computer. It should be just as accessible when you are away from home than it is when you’re sitting on your couch. It should be simple enough for non techies to use without difficulty, but at the same time have enough flexibility and power should homeowners decide to implement more advanced functions. It should be smart enough not to deliver false alerts when things are being monitored and smart enough Not to create problems if people control things manually, should they choose to do so.
Why use our smart home system?
The BPS Smart Home System is based on the very powerful, and very flexible openHAB platform. The devices we install all operate on open wireless protocols that work with many other platforms so you are never locked into a proprietary system. It has many uses and capabilities that can change depending on the desires and needs of the homeowner.
We consider the core function of our systems to be like a check engine light for your house with some added functions that control some of the systems in your house that don’t normally need direct user input. For systems supplying this for functionality there is typically no need for homeowners to interact with the system. Controls are available for turning things on and off should that be desired and charts and graphs of things like temperature and humidity are available but for many people they just want these things to work in the background and for them this is a great solution!
These core monitoring and system controls are even more valuable for people with second homes or rental properties.
Monitoring
- Alerts are received through e-mail and/or text messages if the humidity gets too high in the house, if the temperature gets too low and there is a risk of pipes freezing, or if there is any water in the drain pans of any of the mechanical equipment in the house indicating a potential for flooding. There are also multiple fail safe built into the system to let us and our homeowners know if the system is not operating properly for some reason.
The key difference between our system and others out there that claim to provide alerts like this is that ours only sends alerts if conditions are maintained for a certain amount of time or under certain situations. For example, there are many simpler systems out there that provide humidity alerts but they will send false alerts anytime someone opens the doors in the summertime to let the breeze come into the house or when the humidity gets high in the winter time and it’s not actually an issue of concern.
System Controls
- In addition to providing these alerts decor function of our systems usually also includes managing things like fresh air ventilation, dehumidification, hot water recirculation, and water heater and possibly more advanced HVAC management.
As with the monitoring and alerts, there’s typically no need for homeowners to interface with the system for it to properly control this equipment.
Additional Home Automation
- Of course our systems also allow for control and automation of thousands of other possible devices including smart locks, lighting, cameras, and pretty much anything else you can think of. Again, the most common devices here are things like outside lights and kitchen under-cabinet lights coming on at sunset and going off at a chosen time. These are the kinds of things you typically do more or less the same everyday so are perfect for automation.
For interested homeowners this is just the beginning of what can be done. Our system allows us to create custom scripts for multi conditional situations and control things like fans, greenhouse heaters, jacuzzi and pool controls and more.