Y
eah, we know. Home automation is the most overpromised,
under-delivered technology of modern times, out-hyped only
by cold fusion and the perpetual motion machine. But that situ-
ation is changing rapidly as two new home-control standards fi ght for
dominance: the IEEE 802.15.4 standard popularly known as ZigBee
and the proprietary Z-Wave standard developed and widely licensed
by Zensys. Combine these with a PC, some soft ware, a wired or wire-
less network, a few other gadgets, and a little elbow grease, and you
can transform your home into a digital domicile Buck Rogers would be
proud to inhabit.
Imagine a video-surveillance system that lets you view your
house from anywhere you have Internet access or a home-monitor-
ing system that alerts you to the presence of an intruder by sending
a picture to your smartphone. Or the ability to program your garage
door to turn on your interior lights when it opens—and turn them
off when it closes. How about lights that dim when you press play on
your DVD player?
We’ll show you how to pull off these tricks and a lot more. We’ll
walk you through the steps of planning your own home-automation
makeover, tell you what equipment you’ll need to buy and how to
install and program it, and share the lessons we’ve learned from fi rst-
hand experience. You’ll fi nd even more details at MaximumPC.com
(http://tinyurl.com/2gys8o).You’ve converted everything else in
your life to digital, now it’s time to
literally bring technology home
BY MICHAEL BROWN
36 | MAXIMUMPC | JUN 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com