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Tuesday, June 21, 2016
D-Links Adds 180-Degree Wi-Fi Camera with Automation Features Built In
D-Link introduces the addition of a new HD 180-Degree Wi-Fi Camera (DCS-8200LH), the latest in the mydlink Connected Home Series. The HD 180-Degree Wi-Fi Camera offers a plethora of advanced features like the 180-degree ultra-wide angle lens, 720p HD video quality, and a microSD card slot for local recording. Using the free mydlink Home app, the DCS-8200LH is able to work with, and react to, mydlink’s Connected Home Devices. With IFTTT (If This Then That) support, users can integrate a number of other apps and devices to create automated routines for the camera to follow.
“The Internet of Things (IoT) Connected Home has really advanced in the last few years, and now with the HD 180-Degree Wi-Fi Camera, homeowners can have a secure Connected Home,” says Carina Tsai, product line manager, D-Link. “The DCS-8200LH with IFTTT support gives users the ability to integrate new and exciting recipes to control their home, allowing them to know what’s happening when they’re away and see what caused a motion detection or water sensor alert.”
D-Link’s Connected Home solutions simplify home automation and security, providing a wide range of options for controlling a smart home. Leveraging IFTTT, users can create conditional commands and link multiple IFTTT products and apps together for a completely customizable home automation experience. The HD 180-Degree Wi-Fi Camera offers users the added benefit of home security that reacts with other devices. For example, users can create an IFTTT recipe to have the DCS-8200LH automatically begin recording whenever they leave the house, or take a snapshot when their doorbell rings. The ability to check-in live or playback footage from anywhere on a phone or tablet gives users peace of mind and eliminates any questions when the Wi-Fi Motion Sensor detects movement or the Wi-Fi Water Sensor senses a leak.
Some of the camera’s other features include:
• Unique De-Warping Technology – Maximizes video quality with less distortion
• 802.11ac Wireless – Latest Wi-Fi technology for better bandwidth and improved range
• Sound & Motion Detection – Push alerts notify users of detected motion or loud noises
• Night Vision – See up to 16 feet in complete darkness with built-in IR LEDs
The HD 180-Degree Wi-Fi Camera (DCS-8200LH) will be available in July for $139.99 at the
D-Link Shop and D-Link’s vest network of e-tail partners.
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Indoor Air Quality: Automate your HVAC System for Better IAQ
When people think about investing in a smart thermostat they’re probably doing so to achieve a more comfortable indoor climate where the temperature feels perfect throughout the day. They also might be trying to save a few bucks on energy costs by investing in a thermostat that sets back automatically to an efficiency mode when the house is vacant for an extended period of time. But there’s another benefit of controllable HVAC that you should consider: better indoor air quality.
Benefits of IAQ … Beyond Better Comfort and Health
Having clean, fresh air to breathe is not only good for health reasons–especially for asthma and allergy sufferers– it also helps preserve the integrity of so many of those expensive architectural, decorative, and high-tech features you may have integrated into your home. “Humidity, in particular will affect wood flooring and woodwork, artwork, and electronic equipment,” says Bob Gullo, Electronics Design Group, of Piscataway, N.J. “Flooring can warp and curl when there’s too much humidity in the air or crack and shrink when there’s not enough. Canvas artwork can start to degrade over time when relative humidity (RH) levels are out of whack.”
Even electronic components, like A/V receivers and home automation processors, can feel the impact of improper RH. “There doesn’t have to be water sitting on a circuit board to ruin it; too much moisture in the air can start to corrode the circuits,” says Rob Kreatz, AVID, of Excelsior, Minn., who has experienced the problem first-hand during a stint designing and installing Savant home control systems. On the flip side, if the air is too dry, static electricity can short out the circuits.
Bring your Home’s Humidity Level Back in Check
Although RH levels can affect everything from a family’s health to the hardwood flooring their house, it’s a problem of which few homeowners are aware. “Our customers typically have no idea that humidity can matter,” says Jonie Rocco, owner of Artistic Floors by Design, of Denver, Colo. “Wood flooring is a huge investment, tens of thousands of dollars, and nobody has ever told consumers about how RH can have such a huge impact.”
The numbers say it all: Dan Blake, inspector and owner of Flooring Training Inc., estimates $1 billion a year is lost from failed floors, and 98-99 percent of that is because of improper RH. For these reasons, Artistic Flooring by Design includes an RH estimate in all of its flooring contracts, and this is something a home systems integrator can surely capitalize on by offering technology to enable HVAC systems to maintain proper RH, as well as other factors influencing IAQ, including adequate ventilation and a comfortable temperature.
Improper humidity levels can warp expensive hardwood flooring.
Leveraging IAQ with Automation
Naturally, an HVAC contractor will install the heating, cooling, ventilation, air cleaning, humidification, and dehumidification components, as well as the thermostats and controllers, that all contribute to a home’s overall IAQ. But you can maximize the full potential of your HVAC system’s IAQ capabilities by hiring a home systems integrator to install a thermostat and other technologies, like a home automation system, that will allow you to more conveniently and efficiently monitor, regulate, and affect the conditions of the indoor atmosphere.
Aprilaire is one HVAC manufacturer that has positioned itself to offer a complete IAQ solution, from all of the necessary back-end equipment in the utility room to the thermostats on the walls. The company purposely designed its line of Home Automation Thermostats to regulate not just heating cooling equipment, but also air cleaners, and whole-house humidifiers and dehumidifiers. In fact, unlike most thermostats that control either humidification or dehumidification, Aprilaire’s thermostats can handle both tasks and more. “Our system is able to look at the outdoor temperature and adjust the humidity setpoints accordingly,” says Jon Fischer or Aprilaire. This takes a lot of the guesswork out of programming the proper RH, which happens to be between 35 and 50 percent, with temperature ranges of 60 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Aprilaire’s line of Home Automation Thermostats monitor IAQ conditions.
Education about IAQ is just as important as controlling it, so Aprilaire’s Home Automation Thermostats feature an interactive screen that presents data about the IAQ conditions. For example, the stat will notify you when the RH is off, and will respond by activating the appropriate equipment. This information, as well as other useful tidbits (current outdoor and indoor temperature, status of the ventilation fan and air cleaner, for example), can also be displayed on a mobile app or touchpanel of a home automation system, of which Aprilaire’s Home Automation Thermostats are compatible with many. “This is where a home systems integrator can really monetize on the IAQ component of an HVAC installation,” says Brian Phelt, SmartHome Technologies, of San Antonio, Texas.
In addition to feeding status reports from the stat to the chosen interface of a home automation system, the integration between the two systems lets home systems integrators create more elaborate schedules for the IAQ equipment to follow, and to sync the operation of the IAQ equipment with other systems. For example, the home automation system can trigger the Aprilaire thermostat to activate the air cleaner during days on which the pollen count is high or to kick start the ventilation system when a sensor notices smoke in the air. Furthermore, the home automation system can be set up to notify homeowners with a text message when the humidity levels are too high or low, the indoor temperature has gone beyond a certain range, if the air filter needs to be cleaned, and a host of other tips.
Health and Hardwood
Better indoor air quality requires the right HVAC equipment, but by being able to more actively monitor, regulate, and control the conditions of your home environment, you can protect both the health of your family and the furnishings of your home. You’ll breathe easier and your hardwood floors, in particular, will last longer when the proper humidity levels can be maintained. Smart thermostats, combined with home automation systems, provide the tools to do this, plus a lot more.
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Outdoor Technology Turns Boring Backyard into Something Beautiful
It’s not just the appearance of indoor areas that automated lighting and other technologies can help enhance. Applied with creativity and ingenuity, tech can take an outdoor space to a whole new level of visual sophistication.
When the owners of this 6,000-square-foot home decided to add an outdoor entertainment area to their property, a big-screen TV was one of the top amenities on the must-have list. However, it couldn’t interfere with the natural vibe of pergola constructed predominantly of teak by design firm Laguardia Design Group—Landscape Architecture, of Watermill, N.Y. The solution: stow the 65-inch Samsung screen inside a custom-made wood cabinet fitted with a motorized mechanism from Future Automation that could lift the TV out and into viewing position on command from a Savant app on the homeowner’s iPhone or iPad. The Savant automation system was programmed by the home systems integrators at Systems Design Co., of Southhampton, N.Y., to not only raise the TV but swivel it in three different directions: toward the seating area, the dining table, or the swimming pool.
Accompanying the video eye-candy is audio, courtesy of several James Loudspeaker speakers that were built and painted to match the pergola’s light fixtures. Tucked within the beams overhead, they go virtually unnoticed. Lighting, of course, plays a crucial role in the entertainment area’s aesthetic; a Lutron HomeWorks QS lighting system choreographs the settings of all of the fixtures in and around the outdoor space, and all the homeowner needs to do is tap a button on a keypad as he exits the back door.
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High-Tech Gadgets Fill a ‘James Bond’ Tree House in Greece
By Cathy Lara
Simon Payne, co-founder of Blue Forest in the United Kingdom, grew up in the great outdoors of east Africa. Payne is nostalgically attached to tree houses, which he says remind us all of youthful experiences with “dens, playhouses and hideaways.” After a day trip to Athens, Greece, to visit a client’s estate to see if a tree house build was feasible within the client’s gardens, Payne already had a sense that this tree house build would be one of the most extravagant constructions that his team had ever done. After walking around the client’s property to identify the most appropriate location, Payne chose a site among a collection of mature pine trees near the client’s main home and not far from an existing children’s play area.
At a Glance
Who plays here:A couple and their 11-year-old son
Location: Athens, Greece
Size:376 square feet (interior floor space)
That’s interesting:The tree house is filled with a wide range of high-tech gadgets and is fittingly referred to as “James Bond’s HQ.”
The client wanted to build a large tree house with enough space to include a kitchen, a washroom and a living area. In the initial conversations, TVs, security cameras, biometric security systems and other high-tech gadgets weren’t even in the picture.
Blue Forest UK Ltd, original photo on “>Houzz
The tree house, with a deck perched about 10 feet from ground level, was designed to become part of the landscape and so that trees could be retained; no trees were cleared to make way for the construction. The structure is supported on Blue Forest’s bracer system, which allows for tree movement and growth where the trees pass through the decks.
“Our client’s brief for this project was extremely short, but after our initial meeting, it was clear to us that what they wanted was a tree house on a larger, more functional scale. Having designed and built over 200 tree houses, we’ve become very good at being inventive and allowing our imaginations to run wild after the first meeting,” says Payne.
The construction of the tree house was carried out almost entirely onsite in Greece by three of Blue Forest’s craftspeople. The team employed a special technique that allowed for the tree house’s subframe erection without any fixings to the host tree.
Unique to this project was the high site security required by the client. “Someone from the client’s security detail remained with our craftsmen at every moment — even to the toilet or while waiting outside of the door to enter. My staff was required to hand in their passports, mobile phones and cameras to armed security personnel at the main entrance,” says Payne. Despite being slightly amused by the extremely private nature of the client and the high security, Payne’s team proceeded just as if they were building at home in the United Kingdom.
Blue Forest UK Ltd, original photo on Houzz
This biometric fingerprint lock was one of the high-tech gadgets conceived by Blue Forest. “After much searching, we were able to source a specialist of biometric security systems in China,” says Payne.
The client’s wish to create an exclusive tree house with a number of luxurious accessories made it difficult for Payne and his team to take sustainability into account. But despite the extravagant nature of the scheme, he employed a few methods to help improve sustainability.
The tree house substructure, deck, frame and roof are built almost entirely from FSC-certified softwood timber, being one of the most sustainable construction materials available and ideal for tree house construction.
Blue Forest UK Ltd, original photo on Houzz
Timber was the perfect material for this tree house because it is well suited for Athens’ hot climate; timber, a natural insulator, has air pockets that make it a natural barrier to heat and cold.
Blue Forest UK Ltd, original photo on Houzz
A few of the tree house’s high-tech features: a bespoke CCTV console, a plasma TV, plasma plates and the holy trinity of game consoles: Xbox, PlayStation and Wii — a tween boy’s dream come true.
The tree house was designed to blend in with its natural surroundings. Cedar tongue-and-groove boards, cedar shingles and hand-split oak shakes make up its exterior cladding. The combination of these neutral colors is not only very attractive but is also effective in breaking up the outline of the structure, making the tree house less oppressive in its surroundings.
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Friday, August 29, 2014
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