All, Thanks in advance for reading this long post. I have done a lot of lurking but this is obviously my first post.
Background:
I am doing a complete remodel of a bathroom and wanted to run some of my plans by everyone to see if I am missing something and just get your thoughts in general . The remodel will likely happen in about 6 months and will be the first stage of a complete house remodel. I am on a seriously limited budget, and I have no hardware/software besides a few computers. I will eventually retrofit my entire house with all of the HA goodies that the pros here seem to have in place. I am an EE by trade and have no worries using/creating any type of hardware. I have done some programming in C and perl. Not too familiar with servers/virtualization. Networking scares/frustrates me. I say all that as an introduction and to give a basis of where I am coming from. The house is one story with an attic and a crawl space, so the rest of the retrofit should be possible as far as wiring goes. I am completley gutting the bathroom including drywall, ceiling, and subfloor (leaked at one point and is basically ruined).
Basic Architeture:
Since I am on a weak budget I plan to initially use a PC based solution as the controller. For software I am going to try all of the free solutions for now (Misterhouse, other Linux options, Premise, etc.) and switch to Homeseer/CQC if I eventually find those to be lacking. I guess the most important thing to get right during this remodel is the wiring and make sure whatever I do is compatible with my final vision. That way I can upgrade the individual components as I go. Here were my initial thoughts:
The temporary wiring closet will be an office closet on the other side of the bathroom wall. The permanent wiring closet (not ready yet and part of a later remodel) will be ~100ft away which I will take into account by having huge loops of wiring to run at a later date or using some sort of distributed computing.
System Functionality:
1 - Automatically turn on the fan when someone showers (high humidity)
2 - Turn on radiant floor heat (electric) on a timer and remotely depending on ambient temperature
3 - Monitor for any water leaks
4 - Standard lighting control with dimming and mood (scenes)
5 - Music and announcements
6 - Turn lights on and off based on motion/occupancy
7 - Monitor room temperature
8 - Local control of the system using an in wall touchpanel (does this make any sense at all in the bathroom? I just want one so bad and since this is the first room to remodel... I could put it in the main hall which probably makes more sense)
9 - Crazy idea: automate the bath/shower water temperature, on/off, fill/drain, monitor water usage/flow.
Components:
1 - Humidity (Honeywell) /Temperature (Maxim) sensors interfaced using a 1-wire network
2 - Temperature sensors and controllable tstat for radiant floor interfaced using a relay board run from parallel port/usb/ethernet/etc.
3 - Water sensors (don't know which kind yet, but was thinking GRI/leaf wetness sensor with a custom interface to PC maybe using 1-wire)
4 - Probably will wait for interoperable Zigbee solution (if that takes way too long which it probably will I'll take another look at UPB, Zwave, RadioRA2)
5 - Speaker driven by cheap receiver driven by PC sound card. Eventually will get a WHA system when I do another room. Should I use two speakers, a dual coil, or just one speaker in the bathroom (~80sqft L-shaped.)
6 - Probably a dual tech sensor (we have a 60lb dog). I am not sure how to interface it to the PC. I plan to eventually hook it to an ELK, HAI so I might just have to live without this feature until I get one of those. Plus if I wait on lighting control I can only monitor status not control the lights.
7 - See 1
8 - ELO driven by control PC
9 - Needs some help here on electronic valves. Maybe someone has done something like this and has a writeup that can get me thinking on how to implement this. I did see a similar post or two but need a little more.
Hopefully I am not way off base here and thanks again.
Colby
Background:
I am doing a complete remodel of a bathroom and wanted to run some of my plans by everyone to see if I am missing something and just get your thoughts in general . The remodel will likely happen in about 6 months and will be the first stage of a complete house remodel. I am on a seriously limited budget, and I have no hardware/software besides a few computers. I will eventually retrofit my entire house with all of the HA goodies that the pros here seem to have in place. I am an EE by trade and have no worries using/creating any type of hardware. I have done some programming in C and perl. Not too familiar with servers/virtualization. Networking scares/frustrates me. I say all that as an introduction and to give a basis of where I am coming from. The house is one story with an attic and a crawl space, so the rest of the retrofit should be possible as far as wiring goes. I am completley gutting the bathroom including drywall, ceiling, and subfloor (leaked at one point and is basically ruined).
Basic Architeture:
Since I am on a weak budget I plan to initially use a PC based solution as the controller. For software I am going to try all of the free solutions for now (Misterhouse, other Linux options, Premise, etc.) and switch to Homeseer/CQC if I eventually find those to be lacking. I guess the most important thing to get right during this remodel is the wiring and make sure whatever I do is compatible with my final vision. That way I can upgrade the individual components as I go. Here were my initial thoughts:
The temporary wiring closet will be an office closet on the other side of the bathroom wall. The permanent wiring closet (not ready yet and part of a later remodel) will be ~100ft away which I will take into account by having huge loops of wiring to run at a later date or using some sort of distributed computing.
System Functionality:
1 - Automatically turn on the fan when someone showers (high humidity)
2 - Turn on radiant floor heat (electric) on a timer and remotely depending on ambient temperature
3 - Monitor for any water leaks
4 - Standard lighting control with dimming and mood (scenes)
5 - Music and announcements
6 - Turn lights on and off based on motion/occupancy
7 - Monitor room temperature
8 - Local control of the system using an in wall touchpanel (does this make any sense at all in the bathroom? I just want one so bad and since this is the first room to remodel... I could put it in the main hall which probably makes more sense)
9 - Crazy idea: automate the bath/shower water temperature, on/off, fill/drain, monitor water usage/flow.
Components:
1 - Humidity (Honeywell) /Temperature (Maxim) sensors interfaced using a 1-wire network
2 - Temperature sensors and controllable tstat for radiant floor interfaced using a relay board run from parallel port/usb/ethernet/etc.
3 - Water sensors (don't know which kind yet, but was thinking GRI/leaf wetness sensor with a custom interface to PC maybe using 1-wire)
4 - Probably will wait for interoperable Zigbee solution (if that takes way too long which it probably will I'll take another look at UPB, Zwave, RadioRA2)
5 - Speaker driven by cheap receiver driven by PC sound card. Eventually will get a WHA system when I do another room. Should I use two speakers, a dual coil, or just one speaker in the bathroom (~80sqft L-shaped.)
6 - Probably a dual tech sensor (we have a 60lb dog). I am not sure how to interface it to the PC. I plan to eventually hook it to an ELK, HAI so I might just have to live without this feature until I get one of those. Plus if I wait on lighting control I can only monitor status not control the lights.
7 - See 1
8 - ELO driven by control PC
9 - Needs some help here on electronic valves. Maybe someone has done something like this and has a writeup that can get me thinking on how to implement this. I did see a similar post or two but need a little more.
Hopefully I am not way off base here and thanks again.
Colby