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It's every nerds fantasy -- a "smart house" that knows when you left the lights on and turns them off, adjusts the heat and A/C according to the outside temperature, closes the blinds in the afternoon sun and reminds you to get milk at the store.
Sound like something out of Battlestar Gallatica? Maybe, but it's not as science fiction as you think. In fact, home automation is burgeoning market with all sorts of toys available. The problem is, for most part, it's a playground limited to those lucky few dot-com millionaires.
If you happen to have sold YouTube for a billion dollars you're all set. Just shop around and find a contractor who specializes in this stuff and pretty soon an automated voice will announce when the milk is low.
Fortunately the rest of us aren't completely left out of the home automation fun. But beware this stuff gets pretty nerdy pretty fast and it definitely helps to have some background knowledge about electronics and networking.
==Why?==
Aside from the nerd bragging rights, fully automated homes can be much more efficient. Left the light on in the basement after that last-minute laundry dash? That's money out of your pocket, but an automated home could have killed the lights as soon as you came upstairs.
Ditto for the A/C you left running all night or the blinds you always forget to close in the afternoon heat. Your forgetfulness is wasting money and using energy you don't need to use. Automation cuts down on your energy use by making smart decisions for you.
Aside from the potential money savings there are other things you can do like monitor security and detect unwanted visitors around your home or send yourself an e-mail when the basement water pipes burst while you're at work.
==How==
For the DIY automator the most popular solution is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_(industry_standard) X10 network protocol]. X10 is communications protocol and network address system not unlike the TCP/IP protocol that powers the internet.
The main difference is that X10 is very low-bandwidth and communicates over the power lines running through your house. The basic set up is simple and many X10 devices are quite cheap. A command center --typically a PC -- sends messages over the wires and X10 devices respond to any commands you send.
Say, for instance, you plug a lamp into a common X10 wall outlet. Just set up your PCs with a serial X10-computer interface and you can control the light with your PC.
==Software==
Of course you'll need a way to communicate with your X10 devices. Most DIY home automators recommend [http://misterhouse.sourceforge.net/ MisterHouse], a collection of Perl scripts for controlling x10 devices. Not only is more robust than the software that typically comes with a serial interface, it's Perl so you can hack on it however you like.
Check out the MisterHouse site for more details and some examples of the things you can do with X10.
Another excellent resource for the home hacker is O'Reilly's [http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596004057/ Home Hacking Projects for Geeks].
Happy automating.
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