Home Automation

We were inundated with volunteers for our 'home automation' trial. But we wanted to know - was it worth the effort?

Have you ever considered being able to control your home from a computer or the comfort of your couch? You may have a remote control for your TV or hi-fi, but you don't have to invest in lots of expensive technology, new domestic appliances, or even major rewiring to automate other aspects of your home.

Home automation

We invited Which? readers Pat and Graham Wood, and their daughters Fiona, Laura and Natasha, to try out a home automation starter kit, £200. The kit just plugs in - so you could use it to automate anything that plugs into a wall socket. We added some extras - a curtain rail that can be controlled at the push of a button and an infrared movement sensor. We dropped it all off with the Woods and left them to it. Six weeks later we went back to find out how they got on.

How it works

The kit we gave the Woods is called 'X10'. It's available from B&Q, or as separates from dealers such as Laser or Let's Automate. Most of the kit uses mains sockets and wiring to enable electrical appliances to be controlled remotely. To get started you need a transmitter/receiver (a transceiver), an X10 adaptor plug and a remote control.

Transceivers plug into an electrical socket and direct the signal from your remote to the appliances you've linked into the X10 system. So your remote sends a signal to the transceiver, which turns it into an X10 signal that travels through the mains to control the appliance.

Steps One, Two & Three

1: The adaptor plug

You can link an appliance, such as a difficult-to-reach lamp, into the system by plugging it directly into the transceiver, or into an X10 adaptor plug. You're then ready to start operating it with an X10 remote control.

2: Setting up

The Woods found it easy to get started with the kit. Setting it up was a family affair - they found it useful to have one person operating the remote and another checking that appliances were turning on and off as expected. But organising appliances to work the way they wanted them to took a bit more time and effort.

The Woods set up their electric blanket so that they could turn it on and off using a remote control from any room in the house. But, even when the system was up and running, there were uncertainties about whether it was working the way they wanted it to: 'If we turned the electric blanket on upstairs, using the remote control downstairs, we didn't know whether it had come on or not. If there was a light on the remote to show that it had sent the signal, then that would be good.'

They got a surprise when they fitted the transceiver in the bedroom to control the blanket. 'The transceiver attached to the electric blanket makes a loud clunk. It made me jump last night when I was in bed with the newspaper.'

3: Wired for light

In addition to the basic kit, we bought the family some X10 items that couldn't simply be plugged in. One of these was a light switch which, once wired in, would allow the family to control the ceiling lights with the remote. Graham felt confident enough, with his DIY background, to wire this in himself, and used it to replace the traditional light switch on the landing. Doing this does require electrical know-how.

The family can now control the landing light using a remote, or program it to come on and off at set times. The new switch also has a dimmer function.

Steps Four & Five

4: Anyone for tea?

The Wood family wanted to be able to turn on the kettle without having to be in the kitchen. It wasn't easy to set up, but the family liked the end result: 'One of our daughters gets up very early for work, 6.30, and she can pop the kettle on from upstairs while she's getting dressed, ready to make a cup of tea.

The problems in setting up the kettle arose because they had to find a way to work round the kettle's on/off switch. 'To rig the kettle up we need to fill it with water and turn it on as normal. We then turn the kettle off again using the remote - this leaves it ready to be turned on with the remote control when we want a cup of tea. Whoever uses the kettle now leaves it set up ready to go each time.'

5: Remote control curtains

Graham's DIY skills were called on again to attach the motorised curtain rail. 'It was easy to put up,' he told us. 'Once I'd taken the old rail down, it was just a case of attaching the new one to the wall with screws. There's no wiring as you simply plug it into a socket - so you need to have a socket nearby.'

The Woods set their curtains to open and close using its timer, and only one family member had reservations: 'The motor makes a bit of a noise, especially at 7am when everything's quiet. It woke Fiona up so she asked us to reset it for a bit later.' The curtains were from a company called Silent Gliss, and can be used independently, or plugged into the X10 system.

Steps Six, Seven & Eight

6: Staying in control

Once the appliances you want to automate are plugged into the X10 system, there are several ways to control them. The family had five different styles of remote control to try out but preferred the Home Control HR10 which they found easy to work and which had a reliable signal strength. It could operate up to 256 separate household appliances.

The family found that not all the remote controls were equally reliable. The keyring remote was one example: 'We could turn the electric blanket on from downstairs using the keyring remote, but when we got upstairs we found it wasn't strong enough to send the signal downstairs to the transceiver to turn the blanket off again. And from the bedroom we couldn't turn the landing light on when the transceiver controlling it was downstairs.'

7: The computer option

Software lets you control the appliances you've automated via a PC. Although the Woods installed the software, they didn't think they'd use it unless they were going on holiday and wanted to program appliances to come on for security reasons. They were happy controlling most things with their favourite remote control, but they did consider using the software to set the washing machine and dishwasher to run during the night to take advantage of the cheaper night-time electricity.

8: What's the time, Mr Wolf?

We gave the family a movement sensor which they put upstairs on the landing. They set it to send a signal that would turn the landing lights on for a couple of minutes if it sensed someone moving about on the landing during the night - handy for trips to the toilet. But not everything went according to plan. Graham told us: 'We linked the movement sensor into the landing light so that the light came on for a minute or two when it detected movement. But it did its own thing. The lights just came on in the middle of the night.'

We later took the unit back to the lab to examine it, and found that it was faulty.

Finding the optimum location for this module is tricky - you have to find it by trial and error to get the best results.

The Verdict

Overall the family found it easy to set up the home automation kit and get their household appliances running. It was also easy to change them around, so if someone was sick in bed, the appliances in their room could be automated to make life easier.

But the family was disappointed to find that the X10 system didn't work with their energy-saving bulbs: 'We tried to wire in the wall light switch to the low energy light bulbs in the ceiling in the dining room but it didn't work.' The family thought that the X10 adaptors were chunky, too, so you've got to have enough room for the plug and the adaptor in places where sometimes space for plugs is tight.

We asked the Woods what they thought it was most useful to automate. The kettle was a winner, as was the electric blanket. The movement sensor got the thumbs up (although the one that came with our kit was faulty), as did being able to turn four sets of lights on or off with one flick of the remote, and being able to control remotely the landing light and the curtains.

Despite the advantages, the Woods were sceptical about whether they'd have bought the kit themselves: 'At around £200, probably not. But I would certainly buy a couple of bits that are sold separately, for example, to work the electric-blanket from downstairs.'

Home help

Patricia thought the X10 could help people with mobility problems: 'I can see it would be useful to have the electric blanket on remote and to control sockets or lamp switches that are difficult to get at. It can save you having to bend down to turn things on and off, or going upstairs to do something.'

If you do run electrical appliances automatically, fit a smoke alarm nearby for safety.

At around £300 the automated curtain rail was deemed an unnecessary luxury, 'especially as we can do it manually without exerting ourselves.'

What the future holds

Home automation is in some ways the forerunner to 'smart' or 'intelligent' homes. You can add an X10 system to your home without too much upheaval, but smart homes tend to be purpose-built or completely renovated with dedicated technology incorporated into the building's structure.

Contacts

B&Q
0845 6096688
www.diy.com

Let's Automate
0871 871 8885
www.letsautomate.com

Laser
020 8441 9788
www.laser.com

Silent Gliss
01843 863571