Smart Homes For Dummies� - Softcover

Briere, Danny; Hurley, Pat

2.81

37 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0764525395 ISBN 13: 9780764525391

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2003

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Most people have had some contact with a network through their work environment – computer local area networks (LANs) in the office, control networks in factories, telephone networks in many mid–sized or larger businesses. The Internet itself is one big network.

Although some folks may think of a network as simply something that helps them do their work, the network concept has begun to move from the workplace to the home address. Smart home builders and remodelers (and forward–looking owners of otherwise perfect existing homes) are starting to think in terms of wiring (or wirelessing) their homes both to make use of a network today and to prepare for future structural requirements.

Smart Homes For Dummies, 2nd Edition, lays out a richly landscaped spread of possibilities in networking your home devices – for convenience, cost control, time–savings, safety, and increased property values. This forward–thinking, fun guide spells out how to

Imagine all the cool stuff that home networks can do
Make your home an entertainment center
Plan a phone system
Design a home–based LAN
Wire a security system
Install and configure all the gizmos

Smart homes never want for innovation; people are constantly inventing things. Stuff that seems niche–oriented and expensive today may be high–volume consumer products tomorrow. Smart Homes For Dummies, 2nd Edition, invites you to take advantage of the latest techno developments as you rev up for the upcoming gee–whiz things that′ll make your home a twenty–first century castle. You′ll meet the most recent information and insight on

Figuring how much you′re willing to spend
Connecting your kitchen appliances and more
Feeding audio and video from your Media Center
Accessing the Internet all over your house
Integrating a satellite system to create a video network
Untangling cables and components
Seeing what′s just over the horizon for telephone service

A home network opens the world to your entire household, and Smart Homes For Dummies, 2nd Edition, provides a plan for your home, sweet home to enjoy all that awaits in an infinite space.

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Review:

"...an essential resource for anyone interested in converting their home from a stupid house to a smart house..." -- International Smarthouse, January 2003

From the Author:

Network your home for the future!
Smart Homes for Dummies was written to solve a real world problem that we ran into – namely the lack of good information on how to go about wiring a home for all of the neat telecommunications, computer, and entertainment systems that we wanted to install. Danny, in particular, ran into this problem when he was restoring an historic home in Maine. His contractor was great in many ways, but when it came time to install wiring for a computer network, multiple phone lines, and a whole-house entertainment system, things got a bit complicated. We just couldn’t find a good resource anywhere that would help the contractor (or the homeowner for that matter) – so we decided to write our own.

So if you’re building a new home, renovating an existing home, or just trying to install some leading-edge home entertainment or other home network in your house, this book is for you. In fact, it’s the only book out there on this topic – we checked!

Smart Homes for Dummies may bring to mind things like the Jetsons and Rosie the Robot, or Bill Gates’ famously wired home in Seattle – and we do talk about both – but we designed it to be useful even if your wiring ambitions are a bit less far reaching than total automation. We break down the "smart" systems in a home by category – telephones, computer networks, security systems, video and audio networks, and home automation systems – and take you through the design and layout of each one step by step. It’s NOT a wiring how-to manual as much as it is a design guide. We break each element of a home network down into its components, talk about what kind of wiring and equipment is needed, and give you guidance on how to put it all together in your house. We also realize that not everyone can run new wires in their home, so we have provided lots of information about alternative networks that use radio waves, electrical lines, or existing telephone wiring to get the job done.

The things you can do with a smart networked home are just about endless – and they’re not just for the fabulously rich or the hopelessly nerdy (though we’d like to include them as well). For example, a home video network is easy to install, and it can let you watch your home theater’s VCR or DVD player on any TV in the house, which means you won’t have to buy a VCR for each TV! A home computer LAN is also inexpensive and easy to install and it will let you share files and printers, play multi-user networked games, and even share a high-speed Internet connection on every computer in the house (even the laptop in bed). Those who work at home or have teenagers may want to wire their homes for multiple phone lines, or even for a home phone system that can do all the neat stuff an office system does, like transfer calls, set up conference calls and even play music on hold. The book details all of these things and more (including stuff like security alarm systems, automation systems that can turn on your appliances, lights, the all important coffee pot, and whole-home audio networks that pipe music to every corner of the house). We talk about how to set up your home to take the maximum advantage of all the devices you want to install in your house: TV, VCR, CD Player, Tape Player, DVD Player, Intercom, Phone System, Remote Controls, Video Doorbells, DirecTV Players, Smoke Alarms, Infrared Motion Sensors, Internet Refrigerators, Screenphones, Voice Control Automation, Home Entertainment Systems, and so on. What’s really neat about Smart Homes for Dummies is that we tell you how to mix and match all of these systems so you can play your audio tapes over your intercom system, or use your motion detectors to open the garage door.

Basically, we wrote Smart Homes for Dummies because we believe there are a lot of people out there who think like us. They want their homes to be future-proofed for this next age of communications – and that takes planning. Suppose you had an Internet refrigerator – how would you connect it to the Internet? Or suppose you wanted to watch your child take a nap in the nursery – through the Picture-in-Picture capability on your TV set – how would you wire that? Smart Homes for Dummies helps you save money by making the most of the investment you are making in your home. Do it right, do it once, and all the flexibility of your design enable you to take advantage of all of the neat things that networks can do today, as well as prepare you for future communications technologies.

Not to mention, we think having a networked smart home is a heck of a lot fun too!

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