Re: HA philosphy

["Mal Lansell" <mal@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

My guiding rule has always been "guest friendliness" - if
you have to
explain how to turn on the lights, your system has failed.

It may be heresy, but Home Automation to me involves very little in
the way of actual automation - the only things I automate are the
entirely predictable, such as garden irrigation or heating.
Everything else is just simplification of otherwise complex tasks -
lighting scenes instead of turning on individual lamps for example,
but still under direct human control from a simple wall switch rather
than attempting occupancy detection or triggering from time of day
events.

The biggest WAF I've had for HA has come from the Harmony remote which
has reduced setting up for a DVD from fidling with 4 remotes to one
button press.  The other favourite is the DVD database I put on our
intranet complete with a movie "suggester" (a window showing each
title in random order -
http://www.lansell.org/mal/movies/movies.php).

Simple and useful - that's the key.

Mal








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