The term ‘home automation’ conjures different levels of expectation and understanding in home owners and general electricians alike. The description is often over-used and inappropriately applied by those in the trade who either don’t actually offer home automation at all, or are simply not capable of delivering it. In many cases, the use of this terminology arises through an earnest assumption that home automation is predominantly about being able to ‘dim the lighting’.

However, true home automation can be far more powerful and versatile than simply providing the ability to fade lighting up or down. It is therefore necessary to differentiate between those lighting control solutions that offer the full expected range of functionality and flexibility, and those that masquerade as home automation — but fail to deliver in key areas.

As such, the terms ‘smart home controls’ or ‘smart home installations’ are increasingly being used in place of ‘home automation’ throughout the lighting and integration industries to define the real deal. While genuine smart solutions have historically been complex to commission, recent developments mean that these no longer need be beyond the reach of industry participants at all levels of competency.

A true smart home installation should encompass a certain degree of integration to other services within the home, such as heating and cooling, motorised blinds, home entertainment, access control and security. It should also facilitate the setting of different lighting scenes to accommodate a range of user requirements for specific areas.

Common functions of true smart home installations include ‘welcome home’ and ‘goodbye’ features. The ‘welcome home’ can be set to light a pathway from the front door to the kitchen, for instance, while the ‘goodbye’ feature can turn off all lighting in the house and activate the security systems. Smart home controls further enable the initiation of a number of timed events, such as the raising or lowering of blinds, exterior lighting, irrigation systems and pool pumps.

Moreover, to take full advantage of the numerous energy management strategies available to the homeowner, a smart system is essential. Energy savings can be made through automatically turning off lighting and other equipment when areas are unoccupied, or through a ‘goodbye’ function when vacating the property. Further savings can be made through intelligent integration of lighting and blind control, to offset energy demands from heating, cooling and lighting systems.

By contrast, many so-called home automation systems fail to deliver even some of the basic elements of this broad array of functionality. These failures can arise from two different situations. Firstly, there are those systems that comprise the necessary smart home control hardware, but which haven’t been configured properly. Secondly, there are those systems which are simply not smart systems at all.

A growing number of systems are being marketed as ‘home automation’ systems, but their functionality in practice is extremely limited. Where a true smart system will incorporate a communication network linking all luminaires, sensors, user-interfaces — plus integration to third-party systems and other services — these systems are generally ‘stand-alone installations’ and offer only limited control scenarios.

While some of the more sophisticated of these systems offer dimming, presence sensing and light-level sensing, these functions extend only to the immediate area. A switch or sensor in one area is not able to affect lighting in any but the area in which it resides, as there is no communication infrastructure in place to transfer the necessary information. In essence, the way in which these systems are hardwired limits the flexibility in how they can be used.

But the limited scope of these systems is, in a strange way, part of their attraction. The minimal capabilities require little in the way of expertise to set up and configure, and for this reason, these systems are often favoured by electricians who do not have the experience to commission the more versatile smart systems.

To address the general perception that true smart home installations are overly complex to configure, smart home control solutions providers have been endeavouring to make these systems easier to setup.

While the homeowner will be largely unaware that the setup of their system is now easier, they will certainly appreciate the savings in commissioning costs now possible through reduced time on site. Commissioning costs have traditionally accounted for 10 to 20% of the total cost of the job. With the promise of faster commissioning in the future, as a result of these new software developments, it is anticipated that commissioning costs will drop below 10%.