Structured cabling has existed for many years and is a term more commonly found in the commercial sector. It is a cable network design that is implemented in a building to support technology and communications services. It can incorporate data, telephone, security, BMS, Fire and electrical but it is commonly referring to data & telecommunications services.

The term Smart wiring is most commonly used around residential dwellings and is a marketing term used to pitch home automation sales to new home builders. People regularly see a few blue coloured cables that have been run around the house and call it smart wiring but more often than not, there is nothing smart about it at all.

I personally dislike the term “Smart wiring” because I associate it with the poor installations carried out by so called “Home Automation Experts”. The first thing to remember is that probably 90% of organisations who claim to be home automation experts are in fact far from it. In an industry that bares no regulations how can there be so many certified experts?

Regardless of what term you choose, “Smart Wiring” or “Structured cabling”, the concept is very important because there is only one or two opportunities to install true structured cabling into a house which is when it is being constructed or a major renovation is taking place.

With structured cabling design in a residential dwelling you should be considering the lifecycle that you are trying to achieve. Try to consider how long it will be before the house will either be rebuilt or have major renovations carried out. This will be the next opportunity to change the structured cabling as retrofitting is near impossible.

When our organisation designs a structured cabling plan for a project, we are trying to achieve a lifecycle of at least 20 years. This means that we are trying to support current and new technologies in the future for at least this period. It doesn’t mean that in 20 years the structured cabling will need to be replaced.

One thing to remember is that the majority of cabling that you will install in a structured cabling design is relatively cheap. It should cost between 1 and 1.5% of your building cost, supplied and installed. Labour is probably the biggest expense in the process but the difference in cost between running 2 cables to a destination or running 3 is fairly insignificant so always have spare cabling installed for future capacity.

Try to pick a suitable central point for all cabling to run to. This is generally the biggest mistake that is made by picking an area that is unsuitable. If your installation is substantial then you should be looking for an area that can house a free standing equipment rack with good access to at least 3 sides and adequate ventilation. You should also pick an area that will not affect adjacent areas due to equipment noise.

Contrary to what some people believe, sticking a 40RU rack in a cupboard in the Theatre room is not a good idea. However it is advisable to have the equipment room in close proximity to the Theatre as it will most likely have a large amount of AV services installed and reducing cabling lengths is important for signal quality as well as a reduction in cabling costs.

A well ventilated store room is the perfect choice and something that is virtually dust free if you want to achieve good equipment life. If you are unable to provide a dedicated room for this then your next best option would be a space in the garage as it offers great ventilation but the drawback is typically an increased level of dust.

Avoid small cupboard spaces inside the house as they provide poor ventilation, poor acoustics and poor access. Cupboards are for linen and crockery, not for racks and noisy equipment that generate heat.

The types of cabling that you install will depend on the size of your project and the services to be installed. Try to have an open mind when working on your structured cabling plan. Assuming that you will never want the ability to watch TV in a guest bedroom or have music by the swimming pool is not offering you a great deal of flexibility in the future should you change your mind.

The structured cabling is the backbone of any technology installed in your home and you are given one opportunity to get it right so always talk to someone who has a great deal of experience in this area. Make sure that it is well documented and cables are clearly identified when installed. It is this documentation that will allow you to identify whether you can support future technology later down the track.

How much cabling is enough you might ask? I would tell you that more often than not, people tend to not have enough than have too much. A large scale residential project that our organisation completed a few years ago had more than 20 kilometres of structured cabling installed and this excluded the electrical services. Admittedly this was a 1300Sqm home valued at over 7 million so you wouldn’t consider it to be your average home…

Using an energy management system will provide you with reduced power consumption, produce less carbon emissions, provide more flexibility with how you interact, as well as automated processes to save you power when you forget.

Rabone Systems has carried out extensive research in how best to deliver energy management systems, providing its clientele with powerful solutions that give great return on investment. With Philips Dynalite as our partner of choice for energy management hardware and all programming services provided ‘in-house’ by highly trained and experienced staff, customers can rest assured that they are receiving a reliable and robust solution that provides simplicity & advanced functionality meeting your current and future needs.

With the wide range of interfaces provided by Philips Dynalite, the integration of an energy management system will keep with the aesthetics of your new home regardless of your design. Placement & functionality of interfaces is discussed well before the final stages of construction and a heavy emphasis on future proofing your investment as well as improving resale value of your property is paramount.

Keeping up to date with current and future energy efficiency requirements as well as technology trends, Rabone Systems is an innovative company with a proven track record of exceeding expectations and delivering on time in some of the most demanding environments Australia wide and off shore.

Energy management is only the beginning and it is one of the services out of the large portfolio Rabone Systems delivers. You should consider us as your complete technology solution provider for residential, corporate, government & marine environments.

Contact us at info@rabonesystems.com.au

Or you can reach us on 1800 722 663

Intelligence. Control. Innovation.

What has changed is that there is a greater presence in the residential arena for these systems and they extend from the basic contactor switching methods to dimming systems with a greater focus on energy management.

Lighting in the home has had some significant changes too. Once it was all about functional lighting for people to see what they are doing and provide a safe passage. Now feature lighting is becoming more prominent and if you are serious about lighting when you are building your new home, the services of a lighting consultant are utilised to provide a lighting design that will deliver both functional and feature lighting throughout your home.

Sustainability is also playing a key role with the use of energy efficient fixtures as a mandatory requirement for all newly built homes.

A lighting control system provides the management of your lighting throughout your home and is designed to simplify the way you interact with it.

This is not always the case as there are a large number of people installing lighting control systems who do not understand the basic principles and defeat the very key purposes for installing such a system.

So what are the key benefits?

• Reduced energy consumption – This is achieved through dimming circuits. Conventional light switches provide full power to a lighting circuit when more often than not it is excessive and a waste of energy. A lighting control system can be configured to run your lights at 70% as a standard brightness over a typical 100%. By this we achieve 30% less power consumption and we extend our lamp life which means less lamp replacement costs.
• Reduced energy wastage – It is quite common for children or even adults to exit an area such as a bathroom and forget to turn the lighting or exhaust fans off. This could be left on for hours at a time but a lighting control system can be configured to automatically turn off lights in designated areas after a predetermined time, helping forgetful people and saving you money in the long term.
• Dynamics – Conventional lighting circuits can’t be changed. They are restricted to the switch that they are wired to and require a person to activate or deactivate from this switch. A lighting control system does not care for the location of a switch point or circuit, just as long as it is a part of the network, any switch can be instructed to control any individual or multiple circuits. This gives you the ability to turn all lights off at one point when exiting the home or perhaps turn on all exterior lights in the event of an emergency.
• Integration – Other systems that operate in your home such as smoke detectors or Alarm systems can be configured to integrate with your lighting control system. In the event that your alarm system is triggered, the lighting control system can be instructed to turn on all exterior lighting or provide egress lighting inside in the event of a smoke alarm.
• Low level automation – Not to be confused with a full automation system which is how some lighting control system manufacturers like to sell and brand their products but a good lighting control system will provide basic interfacing / control of ceiling fans, motorised curtains / blinds, zoned audio systems, RGB lighting control systems and more.

There are different manufacturers of lighting control systems and the decision of which system to go with is a very important one as a lighting control system becomes an integral part of your home once implemented. Design, hardware implementation, programming & support play key roles to delivering a trouble free solution.

Be sure to read up on our article that discusses the major manufacturers in Australia where we look into their strengths and weaknesses, giving you the ability to make an informed decision of which system is best for you.

Rabone Systems, a leading control solutions company has implemented its proprietary touch panel tracking system into its Residential v2.0 software.

The system allows users to roam freely within the home and provide automatic configuration of the control environment. The software identifies the location of AMX MVP series wireless touch panels and configures the appropriate control pages.

In addition to the auto configuration of the control environment, the software provides a number of features that can be enabled or disabled whilst a user is roaming with a touch panel.

Active lighting tracking with override and last zone restore provides automatic lighting when a user enters into the room, the ability to override a room’s current active state, and return a room to its previous state when the user leaves. This allows a user in transit to walk around the home without needing to manually turn on a single light or push a single button.

Active media tracking monitors the current media source being watched in one room and will route the source to the next media zone entered. With Rabone Systems residential software built around resource management and the infrastructure supporting native signal distribution for all media devices, it is now possible for someone to start watching a DVD in the family room which is being sourced from any player in the house, activate the tracking mode, walk into the bedroom and continue the same DVD whilst having the option to automatically shutdown the previous zone or leave it running.

Byron Rabone, Director and Founder of Rabone Systems commented “Automation in the home is about true resource management, squeezing the most out of these resources whilst building in redundancy and system stability.

Our residential software has been developed over the past four years and further development continues every day. It offers our customers a solution that is not obtainable from traditional programming methods, provides a more feature rich environment and a thoroughly tested platform.”

The proprietary tracking system utilizes two existing technologies, (Dynalite and AMX), requires no additional hardware costs to implement and does not utilize RFID technology, which is now making its way into the automation industry with additional costs to implement. It is extremely accurate and is not limited to AMX wireless panels.

The system functions by instructing networked devices to pulse discrete IR codes which are picked up by Dynalite panels and sensors located around the home. Dynalite broadcasts these messages along with the Dynalite device ID across the network which is received by the AMX control system. The software interprets the data, identifies the device, and stores its location in an array. Each touch panel is unique, including the tracking system options that can be enabled or disabled.

Communications between wireless touch panels and AMX are still handled by standard WIFI eliminating the limitations of IR but providing a unique method of identifying the location of devices.

Potentially any device that has the ability to pulse an IR code such as a watch could be used allowing a user to get up in the middle of the night for a midnight snack or a trip to the toilet with only the requirement of opening the fridge door or lifting the seat on the toilet.

Byron Rabone commented,” In the short term, Rabone Systems has provided a low cost and effective method of achieving an intelligent tracking system.

In the long term, we see short and long range RFID technology playing a big part and offering even more functionality to the home user like automatically reclining the home theatre chair to the user’s favourite position without having to lift a finger, just like luxury cars do with driver seat adjustment today.

However further progression and use of such technology will occur, such as setting your desired water temperature for a shower or bath based on user and ambient temperature but instead of having to configure a system manually, the system should be intelligent enough to monitor a user’s habits and set accordingly.

With the reading and writing capabilities of RFID technology, a user will eventually be able to take some of these creature comforts with them to a hotel or friend’s house.

The possibilities are endless which is what makes this industry so exciting.”

For further information please contact Rabone Systems.

Ph: 1800 722 663

Email: Info@rabonesystems.com.au

Web: www.rabonesystems.com.au

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-f454a8c30a9a0a4196f96c0a3bc61785}

Known as Dynalite Dimension, the program will provide standardised training, improved access to technical support, and essential marketing support to all accredited companies and individuals.

At the heart of the program will be a standardised educational syllabus to ensure accredited dealers– including AV installers, system integrators and electrical contractors – stay up to date with the latest in Dynalite’s lighting control and building automation technologies.

Read here for more

Source: Channel News

Sometimes it would be nice to be able to just walk around and program wirelessly with your laptop.

It is now quite easy as there are a number of serial to IP gateways readily available on the market because there is a large amount of legacy devices that people are trying to support over current infrastructure.

Not all serial gateways perform the same and Dynalite will tell you to use their network node. This is not such a bad idea as sometimes a device directly connected to the network can cause problems.

We however have been communicating directly to the network with AMX control systems for a number of years and have never had any issues.

The serial gateways that we have tried and tested come from Quatech. They make a number of wired and wireless products which are suitable and can be configured to communicate directly to the network.

The gateways come with some software to emulate a serial port on your PC making it a seamless connection to your Dynalite network.

The really big benefit to using a serial gateway is that you no longer need to go to site to support your customer!