The sophisticated, mysterious automated house where anything electrical is wired together and effortlessly controlled with the touch of a button or touch-screen. It sounds like something straight out of, well, the future.

But unlike the lofty, secret world of the future, increasing numbers of Australians are embracing home automation technology with both hands and wallets, RIGHT NOW.
Falling technology prices and a growing focus on lifestyle trends have combined to make previously elite technology an ever more desirable addition to new and existing homes in Australia. The smart automated home may sound like an expensive status symbol, yet it's not just for the mega-rich.

Although some home owners spend more than $1 million on state of the art home automation systems, the majority of home owners investing is somewhere between $10,000 and $500,000.

Custom design and installation is the process by which your home electronics are integrated into one coherent system. This is the cutting edge of a rapidly growing field and is only recently becoming more widely known outside the consumer-electronics industry.
Besides having their entertainment system, home audio and personal computers connected to each other, an entire home’s lighting, security and computer networking system can be added to the mix and controlled by a portable touch-screen device.

Even motorised window blinds are being wired into these systems. Just ask Phil Williams, a technology industry executive who is building a home on the NSW Central Coast.
Williams has lined the walls of his home with computer cables to carry voice, video and data signals to phones, computers, TV and audio systems. His home also features in-ceiling speakers, set-top boxes that carry video content to any room, and an automated lighting system that offers pre-set or manual controls for any room. Williams implemented a link between the garage door opener with the home's lighting system to provide the family with welcome lights.

Also included is a motion detector on the driveway that automatically turns on certain lights in the house.

And there's more. The phone system contains an intercom, which will connect to a video camera located at the front gate of Williams' three-hectare property.

All this feeds back across the home's network to what's called a services room that centrally locates the home automation equipment for maintenance and upgrade purposes. Williams’ estimates the total cost of his automation project at between $40,000 and $50,000 - and that's not including the cost of TVs. "It could go double that [cost] quite easily with a bigger plasma," Williams says.

That sort of thinking is pumping millions of dollars into the home automation sector each year.

Bill Mclean, the proprietor of Central Coast-based home automation supplier Mcleans who outfitted Williams' house, says his average job is $50,000. "If we went back five years, an average job was $15,000" he says.

The company itself has increased turnover by 50 per cent this year and added extra staff. Mclean says there is a direct correlation between the amount of training given to his staff and the improvement in the company's sales results. "We're often consulting with the client and the architect to apply all this technology to the house," he says. "And unless you know how the products all talk to each other, there's an issue."

And there are big changes on the horizon where people will own the distribution system for content, such as a home automation network, but the devices will change. For example, a time is coming when consumers will no longer buy CDs, DVDs and the machines that play them.

You are more likely to subscribe to a server and you just draw it live off the server and you'll pay a monthly fee to do that. It's a trend that already mirrors early attempts to set up video on demand, or internet protocol TV services, by companies including Telstra's BigPond and start-ups such as ASX-listed ReelTime Media.

Some pundits predict that within five years' time you won't be able to buy a new house without some form of home automation.
 
Must-have Home Automation Technologies!
1. Touch-screen panel - control lights, sound, TV, A/C
2. HD Plasma or LCD panel –connected with Blu-ray or HD-DVD
3. Projection system - dedicated home theatre
4. Surround sound system
5. Sound server - store all your digital media on one hard drive
6. Digital set top box - record one TV show while watching another
7. Central processor - device that connects all your devices together
8. Media centre PC - the centre of your digital world

SOURCE: Mcleans, AFR

For more information contact Mcleans 02 43 333 545