New Year's Resolution to Make Yours a Smart Home

Just what is a New Year’s resolution anyway? Wikipedia offers the follow definition:

• "A New Year's resolution is a commitment that an individual makes to a project or the reforming of a habit, often a lifestyle change that is generally interpreted as advantageous. The name comes from the fact that these commitments normally go into effect on New Year's Day . . . examples include resolutions to donate to the poor more often, to become more assertive, or to become more economically or environmentally responsible."

Sounds good to me. Each one of these examples could apply to me – how about you? I’m going to include them in my list of resolutions.

Have you have ever had a latent interest in making your home living more convenient, safer, environmentally responsible and fun? Consider a home automation resolution: "Resolved: that I will start automating my home next year."

Home automation can be environmentally responsible. It can enable you to control your lights and manage your home heating and cooling to save energy -- and money.

Let’s say you make a resolution to automate your home in the coming year. How do you get started?

You want a reliable inexpensive system. You want the system to be easy to set up and operate. You do not want to do extensive rewiring throughout your house. You want a starter home automation system that you can expand to include additional tasks when you are ready.

If this is you -- consider INSTEON home automation technology. INSTEON enables simple, low cost devices to be networked together over your existing house power wiring, and a designated radio frequency. The combination of powerline and rado networks makes INSTEON robust and reliable

Consider a starter home automation package that will allow you o control your lamps and appliances – from your home computer or web-enabled phone, even if you are at work or on vacation hundreds of miles away. An Insteon Starter Kit -- Light Dimming is now on the market that includes the latest INSTEON Hub and two lamp dimmer modules. It will allow you to control home lights with your Smartphone, from near or far away.

Perhaps you want to learn more about home automation before you get started. Here are some helpful books. Home automation technology and products are rapidly evolving -- books that are several years old may be dated; you may want to acquire them for ideas and reference -- you also may pay less dated books.

• Insteon: Smarthomes For Everyone: The Do-It-Yourself Home Automation Technology (Paperback) by Matthew Strebe. (2009) 324 pages. covers the INSTEON technology of powerline and radio-frequency automation
• Structured Wiring and Design Manual by Robert N. Bucceri. (2003) 214 pages. helpful in learning about home wiring
• Smart Homes For Dummies (Home & Garden) (Paperback) by Danny Briere and Pat Hurley. (2007) 432 pages. for non-technical readers
• Linux Smart Homes For Dummies (Paperback) by Neil Cherry. (2006) 364 pages.for Linus operating system users only

• 25 Home Automation Projects for the Evil Genius (Paperback) by Jerri Ledford. (2006) 288 pages. illustrates the wide range of home automation projects
• Smart Home Hacks (Paperback) by Gordon Meyer (2004) 328 pages. extreme home automation written by an Apple engineer
• Home Automation & Wiring (Paperback) by James Gerhart. (1999) 322 pages. another home wiring book
• Practical Home Theater: A Guide to Video and Audio Systems (2010 Edition) (Paperback) by Mark Fleischman. (2009) 284 pages. home theater automation may be your next automation project