The ubiquitous iPod is taking the home automation world by storm. Angela Tufvesson discovers that you can control almost everything in your home with a pocket sized remote.

As of September 2008 more than 173,000,000 iPods had been sold worldwide. That’s approximately one iPod for every 40 people in the world.

Fast forward one year (for which figures are not yet available) and take away the populous yet poor regions of Africa and South America and the figure may in fact be closer to one in 10. That’s a revolution in anyone’s language.

What was initially marketed as a solution to large, clunky digital music players soon became a worldwide phenomenon that continues to grow.

With this growth comes a myriad of potential applications and a keen interest from the home automation sector. So what’s the best way to integrate the iPod and iPhone into your connected home?

When the iPhone launched in 2007 it was clear to many that its capabilities weren’t dissimilar from the touch screens and web tablets that were used to control lighting, security, AV equipment and so on in the burgeoning connected home industry.

The main differences were its smaller size and portability – which, in the end, proved an advantage rather than a hindrance. Building on the iPhone’s premise of being all things to all users, design engineers soon developed something of which technophiles only dared to dream: a way to ‘connect’ your home from a pocket-sized remote anywhere in the world.

“The iPhone is the missing link in having control over every event that takes place in the home,” MediaHub Digital Smart Home Distribution sales manager Phil Gibbs says. “It is not just a phone but a powerful hand-held computer and entertainment solution that will take the industry to the next level.”

No major advances were made in functionality; rather, the iPhone makes portable the capabilities of a traditional touch screen system. While touch screens are typically mounted on a wall, the iPhone can live comfortably in your pocket.

With the potential to control any electronic component that would otherwise answer to a touch screen system, oodles of companies have created applications that allow the iPhone or iTouch to control their products.

Home automation applications can be written by manufacturers of equipment or independent third parties.

“There are lots and lots of applications being written for the iPhone or iTouch which will allow you to perform a number of automation functions throughout the house from a central control unit,” says Len Wallis of Len Wallis Audio.

“A lot of them are multi-room AV systems that you can control from your iPhone. With some applications users can access streaming from external sources, so not only do you get the music on the iPhone but you then get control over the system through the house.”

HAI has developed two iPhone applications – one native and the other a web-based program called WL3. They allow control of a property’s temperature, lighting and security settings, or view of any supported security camera securely and easily.

Once installed, the application continually monitors the home and can inform of events such as the alarm system being disarmed or a car entering the garage.

It is customisable and allows the user interface to be changed by applying different graphic and colour schemes, or adding RSS feeds, weather, sports, news, personal blogs and more.

The Crestron iPhone control application is available as a free download from the iTunes application store and provides seamless control of the home and office.

Multiple locations are controlled from a single, intuitive graphical interface that provides real-time status of room temperature, lighting levels, shade position and digital media metadata.

It is fully integrated with Crestron programming software including SystemBuilder, VT Pro-e and SIMPL.

Launching the application on the iPhone initialises communication between the device and the control system.

Simply name the home or office as a location, enter the IP address of the 2-Series controller and establish a password for security. Multiple locations can be entered in the phone.

Once the connections page is closed, two-way communication is instantly established and the XML data file transfers from the Crestron controller to the iPhone.

Similarly, IP-based home control system manufacturer Control4, distributed in Australia by Convergent Technologies, has also released an application that enables iPhone or iPod Touch users to fully access the Control4 home automation system.

By downloading the application, which was developed in partnership with Control UI, and adding software to the Control4 system, users have the option of accessing the system from an iPhone or an iPod Touch.

The hand-held interface is the same as the Control4 family of touch panels and on-screen interfaces, making navigation simple and familiar.

This is by no means an exhaustive list; controlling a multi-room system by iPhone is more complex than other applications, but the number of companies offering the service is growing.

The hip pocket benefits, too, as the cost of an iPhone is dramatically less than most touch panels or remotes. While there is greater flexibility in the programming of touch screens – most systems can be customised, whereas iPhone applications come ready-made – it’s such a major cost saving that the reduction in functionality can almost be forgiven.

MUSIC TO THE EARS

Looking specifically at home audio, there are a number of ways the iPod can be integrated into an automated system.

“There are any number of systems now which will give you streaming of an iPod throughout the house, so you can just place your iPod in the dock by the door and it will play music,” Len says.

“Alternatively, there are some systems which will allow you to stream any number of iPods through the house. If other members of the house have an iPod they can all place them into any number of docks and everybody can access everybody else’s iPod from anywhere in the house.”

Most systems link one or multiple iPods to one central dock.

Yamaha has released a new range of iPod docks including wired wireless options.

“The iPod dock YDS11 plugs into the back of a number of our AV receivers and some of our wireless surround sound products,” says Yamaha marketing manager Dale Moore.

“We’ve also just introduced two new iPod docks – one is a direct iPod dock so the iPod sits in the dock and you navigate with the remote control.

“We have also just released an exciting new wireless iPod dock, where you plug a transmitter into the bottom of the iPod and that sends a signal to the iPod dock wirelessly up to a 20m range. It allows you to use the iPod as a remote control.”

SpeakerCraft MODE (Music On Demand Experience) has the capacity to link together multiple iPods minus the central dock, in much the same way as an electrical circuit. Content from all iPods in the ‘circuit’ is shared and accessible via every device. To date it is the only product of its kind.

“If you’re using MODE keypads you can bring all your track lists up on your keypads around the home. Using this system you can not only retrieve audio data but meta data as well,” says Grant Morgan of Audio Marketing.

The applications discussed here are but the tip of the iceberg. Integration of iPod branded products into home automation systems signals a new phase of the revolution. Watch this space.