Fun with automation

Just over 6 months ago, I wrote that we started making our house a home. I haven't blogged in awhile as I've been consumed with the remodel project. While our project is not yet complete, we have finally moved into our castle (OK, it isn't a castle and isn't all that large, but it is our home). One of the things that I've been planning for is automating many things in the house. I've always had a fascination with home automation, but retrofitting a house wasn't all that attractive to me and I didn't budget for it. I've budgeted for it and made sure all the pieces were in place while the house was being remodeled. My use of automation is 3 fold:

• Security - turn on lights at night when motion is detected
• Forgetfulness - turn off lights after leaving a room
• Convenience or laziness - have 1 button to turn on the heat from any room in the house or 1 button to turn off all the lights in the house

There are several different systems on the market for doing automation and I chose a Z-Wave based system called VeraLite. I went with Z-Wave over Zigbee because there is more variety in types of devices and liked that there were more manufacturers of devices than with Insteon. VeraLite is kind of a hacker's box for automation. It runs Linux, has an active community, and allows people to create plugins in Lua.

I selected Leviton Vizia RF+ components for my switches, controllers, and outlets. I liked the styling of them and they go with the rest of the normal switches in the house. I have a bunch of them and getting everything to work has been a bit of a challenge. The controllers are kind of wacky and I'm still working out the kinks; apparently Z-Wave allows proprietary extensions in the protocol and the Leviton devices do this; VeraLite doesn't understand all of it. In addition, the mesh network that Z-Wave creates for everything to talk to each other seems to get confused a bit. I've gone through the "heal" process more times than I care to count and now everything seems stable. My house is just over 1600 square feet on 3 levels (it is a tri-level), so I'd expect the mesh network to work fine. Each level has a number of devices that act as repeaters and the main controller is located on the bottom level pretty much in the center of the house.

So now that I have it setup, what next? That's a good question. I've setup a few "scenes" that are pretty simple. For instance, I have the front outside lights come on when motion is detected at night (the motion sensors are not Z-Wave sensors, but hooked into a security system as I thought it would be more reliable and didn't require batteries for every sensor) and then they turn off after a few minutes. I have another scene setup that turns off the bathroom lights after 15 minutes if there is no motion; my wife has a bad habit of leaving the lights on which drives me crazy. I have a couple of other scenes for turning equipment off at night to reduce power consumption. I know I've only scratched the surface, but I think it will be worth it in the long run.

Since I'm not content to leave well enough alone, today I worked on a plugin for Vera (I based it on someone else's work, but stripped a lot of it as my needs were different) that talks to my audio control units. So now, I can turn music on in any room of the house from Vera's web interface without having to get up and push the button on the wall. Some may think I'm quite lazy (OK, maybe I am), but this is going to be useful when we want to turn on music outside as my (somewhat) poor planning put the audio controls in awkward places for the outside.

I know that many companies are trying to bring home automation to the masses. I'll be watching to see how they do in the market. The concept is great, but it is really hard to make a one size fits all system that is extremely flexible. Without the flexibility, I think automation systems will be hampered. If I wasn't a geek and a developer, I don't think I'd touch automation at all; it just isn't ready for the average consumer.

Money hungry cable company

As most tech people have heard, Time Warner Cable has raised its modem lease fees from $4 per month to $6 per month. While I think that is steep, I don't really have a problem with it as it doesn't affect me. When they started charging the modem lease, I spent $25 for a used cable modem (I have a standard Internet package, so a DOCIS 2.0 modem works fine). My father has been paying the lease fee and asked me about it now that it is going up. The difference with him is that he has telephone service through Time Warner as well. Instead of a standard cable modem, he has an MTA which handles both phone and Internet in one box.

Time Warner doesn't charge a lease fee for the phone part of the box, but charges a fee for the Internet part of the box. Yes, you read that correctly; my dad is only leasing part of the box and the other part is free. If he doesn't want to pay the lease fee for the Internet part, he has to buy a separate cable modem (currently around $17 used on eBay), put in a splitter and hook it up. He does NOT return any equipment to Time Warner Cable. So if he does that, he would own his own Internet cable modem, and have a free telephone cable modem, but only use half of it.

This is absolutely insane; someone in corporate said that they must charge a lease fee for all Internet customers that use Time Warner Cable equipment. This makes sense except for telephone customers that don't have a choice, but to use the TWC supplied MTA. It is quite unfortunate that there is such a monopoly on high speed Internet; AT&T U-verse is an option, but their speeds and prices don't compare well to cable. We don't have FIOS in our area, so we're pretty stuck.

Paranoia trumps common sense

Today my family and I went to the San Diego County Fair and with most events these days, were prepared for the additional security and screening. While they allowed in backpacks and food, they didn't allow in water bottles (unless they were for children for fears that they would contain alcohol or explosives, I guess). There were numerous signs at the entrance saying that weapons including pocket knives were not allowed and should be left in cars. This wasn't a surprise, but the metal detectors surprised me (my wife had already been this year, so she went through it before). Stuff that didn't go through the metal detectors (backpacks, cell phones, etc.) were just pushed alongside the metal detectors.

Those that are paying attention realize how ridiculous it is to partially screen bags (they poke a stick in bags), but that's not where this article is going. I thought nothing of the weapons ban or any additional security screening until we sat down for a presentation on Kitchen Craft Cookware (the cookware looks real nice and something like it is on our list to purchase sometime after our house remodel is done). My wife was pretty astute and quickly won a plastic juicer that you shove in a lemon/orange/etc., then a "ninja" spatula by being the first to answer questions. Then the kicker came a few minutes later when she answered another question and won a small paring knife. Yes, you read that correctly. We weren't allowed to bring a knife into the fair, but there was no problem with us walking out with one. Then I started to notice a number of vendors selling knives that you could take home.

I wonder if the person or people that came up with the no weapons policy gave it a second thought or just forgot that vendors sell knives at the fair every year (we went many years ago before all the extra security and bought a knife). Too bad our society is so paranoid these days that people forget about using common sense when making policies.

What is security?

I'm sure my loyal readers will think that this article is about computer security as I write a lot about computers and technology, but this article is about physical home security.

With a complete house remodel planned, I've been thinking a lot about securing our house. I've been reading everything I can, watching videos, and even testing security first hand. There are articles and videos about locks, bumping, picking, and using tools to break locks. There is also information about reinforcing door jams and security systems. With all this information, I really have to ask "what is the purpose of securing a house?". That question may sound simplistic, but it is relevant. Unless we build our house like Fort Knox with armed guards and basically no windows, there will always be ways to get in.

Let's start with locks. There are locks in every shape, size, and strength. Does a lock really matter? Well, I've seen videos of people kicking in doors and, of course, we've all seen TV shows with police using a battering ram to go right through the lock. So, someone determined to get in through the front door will definitely do it. A reasonable quality lock is a decent deterrent. Next let's look at a security screen door. What is the purpose of it? I managed to break the lock on our security screen door (not on purpose) and with my father's help, we broke the door in about a minute using a tire iron. So, the security screen door isn't going to keep someone out, but will keep a solicitor from entering the house while we're getting a breeze through it.

If we move on to securing the door jam, it seems like a reasonable thing to do as I've seen videos of the door being kicked in and it is something to consider; however, as I mentioned above, a determined person will get in. No matter what you do to the front door, there are easier ways to get into a house. Windows (unless they are bullet resistant or very reinforced), are pretty easy to break or cut, so there is another way to get in. Locks on windows aren't of much use.

Looking at security systems, they only work after the fact when someone has already entered or attempted to enter your house.

So, what is the answer to security? I think it is quite simple, you need to deter anyone from attempting to get into your house and make your house not look like an easy target. If you keep people away from touching your house, none of the physical security above actually matters. There are a number of ways to make your house look less attractive for a criminal, none of these is revolutionary and hasn't been said before:

• Use motion sensing lights. This is pretty obvious, but a lot of people don't have this and sometimes they are a nuisance, so they're turned off.
• Install cameras that are visible as well as post signs indicating that the property is being video taped. The recordings, themselves, may not actually help to catch an intruder, but the presence may get someone to think twice about approaching. Also, depending on the type of system, you could trigger alerts of someone approaching.
• Watch your routines. In our last house, we always parked our cars in the garage, so if someone looked at our house, he wouldn't know if we were home or not. In our rental, we can't get our cars in the garage, so the presence of our cars means we're home and the lack of one or both means we're not home. When I travel, I take a cab to the airport or get a ride to make it less obvious that I'm not home. In our new house, we're definitely going to get both cars in the garage.
• Don't broadcast your whereabouts on social networks. This is pretty obvious, but have you ever looked at the number of people that checkin somewhere and post on a social network?
• Lock your back gate.
• Don't give people a place to hide around your house; trim back bushes and trees directly adjacent to your house.

I'm going to use a combination of things to secure my house, but am under no illusion that my house will be completely secure, because that just isn't possible.

Am I an expert on this? No, I'm just a regular home owner that has done some thinking about this problem.