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Intelligent Installation Project Planning (4/9/2006)

By Jeremy Aston, Reality Logic

Smart homes, intelligent living, smart life, automated home - these are the phrases that encapsulate the industry of incorporating technology and control in the home. The custom install, home automation and entertainment industry has seen a massive increase in the range and sophistication of available products, but this has not necessarily brought with it a natural improvement in the quality of installations.

Several factors such as increasing public knowledge and expectations, competitive market conditions and decreasing costs, are resulting in growth in the number and scale of projects. This in turn highlights the need, as in any business, for decent project planning and management. Now more than ever, the thinking that goes into designing solutions has to be clear, and focused on making the solution something that works for the client. It is all too easy to do a nicely-finished installation but miss the point of it somewhere along the line - leaving the client with a mass of technology that they are not really getting the most out of.

Over-complicating the project

Over complicating the project is a mistake that is stumbled into easily. There are many very cool bits of kit out there and the inclination can be to encourage the client to use as much as their budget allows. The problem then is to make all the various components of a system work together - integration becomes harder, and there is a real danger that you miss the details that put the icing on the cake. In many projects, the success is down to the devil in the detail in making the disparate elements work seamlessly together, and this always costs more in time and equipment than is first thought. If this is ignored, you will have a system that is difficult to use and therefore unlikely to be used.

For example, I know of an installation where the sophisticated multiroom audio system has been completely bypassed by buying a small CD/FM radio box. Why? The lady of the house simply could not get used to using the keypad to select one of the multiple CD and FM tuner sources and play it, let alone change a CD in one of the rackmounted players. Maybe it is a bit of a training issue, or even an unwillingness to change on the part of the client, but this complication spoils the whole installation. Standing in the shoes of each of your clients and looking at the system through their eyes will expose the little things that matter.

Intelligent design

When talking about intelligent homes, we must apply intelligent design. Simply hooking up a media server capable of playing thousands of MP3 files throughout the home is not enough. How to access and control this massive resource has to be considered. Is a wall-mounted pad with a small LCD really the way to go?

When it comes to control and automation systems, there can also be a distinct lack of intelligent design for the intelligent home. Take, for example, the image below.

Sadly unintelligent design

This shows an actual installation in properties worth seven figures, each containing a KNX/EIB infrastructure for building control. Instead of intelligent design, we see here a simple mirroring of traditional switching mechanisms plastered all over a marble splash back. There has been little regard for alternatives such as PIR, timers, environmental sensors, scene control and so on. Similar design faux-pas can occur when using different systems for functions such as lighting, heating, multiroom entertainment and then ending up with a plethora of wall plate styles and numbers. Does a user really want to be faced with the equivalent of a nuclear power station control panel just to switch a lighting scene?

Do you really need pushbuttons for every function?

A good design process should take into account how easily the component systems can be integrated in terms of visual aesthetics and intelligent control; how much of the automation system can be truly automated using a combination of devices; and what the key features or requirements of the client are that can be encapsulated in something that is as simple to control as possible.

Storyboarding

A method commonly employed in agile software development is rapid prototyping. Of course it is not practical to rapidly install a physical system and iteratively modify it until it is spot on, but it is possible to help the client visualise their system through something like storyboards.

For example, a specification may simply contain a breakdown of functional requirements such as lighting and A/V control in the home cinema, along with the hardware required to achieve the result. It can also contain a storyboard that walks the client through exactly what they will do when they want to play a DVD and how they will do it. Experience shows that this type of approach not only helps to communicate what is going to happen with the client and set their expectations, but can often highlight areas where the proposed implementation is flawed and requires some change.

This can also help plan for the future. If a client does not have the budget to implement some aspects of control right now, then giving them a clear understanding of how their home could be improved over time will encourage them to think about the future.

Thinking ahead

Many will be thinking about structured cabling in terms of CAT5/6/8 etc, but what about the electrical wiring? Configuring a traditionally switched scheme using a star-wired approach, along with laying cable (or even just conduit and trunking routes) to switch points for systems such as KNX/EIB or C-BUS would make a massive difference if an upgrade to a DIN-rail-mounted system were considered for the future.

Cabling should take into account future needs for control, audio and video distribution, data, voice and so on. Of course wireless technology will advance, but for the price and security of cable, is it really worth not putting it in?

Designing a smart home is not simply about filling it with the latest technology. It is really about using technology to improve the client's lifestyle, making the home proactive and responsive to change - whether that be a person's moods and situation over time, or environmental factors such as time, light levels, temperature and so on. The more that design is applied intelligently, the closer we shall be to that goal.

Jeremy Aston is the founder of Reality Logic, designer, supplier and installer of smart home and office technology.

www.realitylogic.com