HA philosphy

[Chris Hunter <cjhunter@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ian -

'good e-mail ... agree with a lot of what you say ... neural-net
approaches & loads of sensors, together, seem unavoidable ... but plus
complex adaptivity, to make it tractable (to manageable algorithms, etc)
...

prescriptive, pre-programmed, anticipating-every-situation, approaches
are a blind alley, going nowhere ... unless in very restricted
circumstances ... behavioural approaches look much more hopeful ...

we went for Idratek, as much as anything, because of this ...

Chris

----

Tuesday, 03 Oct'06 - 16:23:23 +0100

from: Ian Lowe ianlowe@xxxxxxx

Nice theory, as far as it goes ... however, theres a long & ignoble
history of that sort of intelligent automation. I like the points made
about reducing interaction - for me, I used to do a stack of things to
set up the home cinema for watching a movie ... turn-on the projector,
switch-on the sub-woofer, turn-off the other audio sources in the
kitchen, close the curtains, dim the lights ... . Now, I press a single
button, and it all happens. 'thing is, there's nothing intuitive about
it, not even close. Rather than pressing a mystical button, I might as
well be waving a wand, whispering a password etc. For a visitor, it's
obtuse.

Switching the living room into movie mode is just one example of course,
another would be my night time routine. It has been refined over many
attempts, and variously switches-off things like the lights in the
kitchen, the computer-room lights, the amp' & speakers in the kitchen,
turns-on the 'leccy blankets, turns-on the bedroom lamp, and dims it to
a nice welcoming level ...

The problem is, of course, that our night time routine isn't as set in
stone as you think ... some nights, we don't want to go to-bed early,
some nights we want to go to-bed really early, if you catch my drift,
and really don't want the whole macro thing to kick-off around us ...

So you end-up with more & more & more requirement to take into
account
... the sorts of stuff that we humans take for granted, but all involve
more inputs, more sensors, more of everything - all of which have a not
insignificant cost attached. There are a very large number of variables,
and each variable has a tangible cost connected to it.

It's one of my foibles ... I reckon that to do occupancy-detection
properly for my fairly modest three-bedroom semi', I'd need a couple of
hundred, or so, digital inputs to a system, not sixteen, not even
sixty-four ... hundreds. And, even then, we'd probably find the need for
another sensor, switch, PIR or contact, to help us distinguish ever more
precise sets of circumstances ...

It's easy to describe the principle of a learning HA environment. I
sketched-out a system of loadings & weightings on the outputs &
inputs
using very simple stimuli-response reactions - a simple neural-net using
one of the very good code samples out there for this sort of thing, but
gave-up, largely because it was obvious that the number of inputs needed
to make any kind of sensible decision was absolutely HUGE ...

That's what makes me think that the technical feasibility of this is,
IMO, just not there yet. Processing is cheap & getting cheaper all the
time, so it's getting there. The number of smart Ethernet nodes that
have popped-up in recent months is quite thrilling, with ever lower
price-points. When we have Ethernet connected, IP talking nodes with 64
& 128 I/O lines available for £20 a throw ... then we can have the
richness of sensor information available to start doing really smart stuff.

Phew. That's a long e-mail.

Ian

----

Tuesday, 03 Oct'06 - 09:57:16 +0100

from: Mark McCall lists@xxxxxxx

We've been sent this interesting essay from Alex Chelmis. Take a few
minutes to read his ideas and let us know what you think ...

Since I remember myself, I have always been fascinated by robots. As a
kid, it was my favourite day-dreaming subject & loved all the movies
that featured robots of any kind. Soon I realised that I was also
attracted by other gadgets you could use in order to perform an
operation that would be too difficult, or need too much time & effort,
for a human. At some point it became clear that what actually fascinated
me was anything that would automate an operation which otherwise would
need a human interaction. It was inevitable to fall in love with the new
up-coming world of home automation. Unfortunately, every time I tried to
follow a project published or advertised about home automation, I found
myself getting confused and finally bored with the details. During the
past fifteen-years, I have visited exhibitions & read many articles
&
white papers offering all-in-one home automation solutions. After the
initial excitement, I got confused with unnecessary complicated
processes, giving me the feeling that they have completely missed the
point. Everything that currently exists under the title of Home
Automation or Smart Home is a proprietary idea customised to somebody
else's requirements who is trying to convince you that his everyday
needs are similar to yours. Any attempt to create open standards (X-10)
has failed to get broadly accepted & only appeals to computer &
electronic geeks. I think we got into this situation because people have
forgotten the reason they wanted to automate something in the
first-place. This is what this article is all about. Reminding people
the basics, and help them maintain the focus on satisfying the why while
they come up with ideas of how they need to automate an operation. I
believe there is a need for projects to change the way they are
developed, in order to become more appealing to the average person. It
is about time for this industry to hit the mass-market & you can only
achieve that by talking to the non-technical person. There is so much to
gain from home automation, enough to change our everyday lives, forever ...

www.automatedhome.co.uk/article1764.html

M






** Sponsored by http://www.BERBLE.com **
all the Cool Stuff, in one Place