Home Automation

Had one of the funniest/most rewarding geeky evenings last night figuring out how to automate my Tempurpedic Ergo Adjustable electric bed with my good ole automation buddy Andrew.  Since getting this whole Quadomated home automation stuff together one of my biggest wish list... Read More

One of the centerpieces of my automated smarthome, and definitely the most enjoyable part of my Home Automation/Media Distribution System is all the awesome home entertainment features that can be enjoyed around the house through my HTPCs (Home Theater Personal Computers). So... Read More

Probably the most difficult thing to figure out how to integrate into my HAI Omnipro was the Somfy ILT electric shade motors. Not because it was that difficult to do, but because the technical documentation explaining how to do it was so very scattered and hard-to-find. I hope by... Read More

When purchasing windows for Quadomated I did a whole lot of searching for the most energy-efficient window that I could automate with some sort of electric motor or actuator.  Initially I was completely overtaken by the significant energy efficiency increase of the Canadian built... Read More

A big part of any home automation/security system is the contact sensors that let you monitor the state of the windows and doors. Most often these sensors use a reed switch on the stationary window/door frame and a magnet on the moving window/door. A reed switch is a simple... Read More

Okay, so you made up your mind, you’re going to run thousands of feet of wire throughout your house and jump in waist deep with this whole home automation stuff.  Great!  But, if you’re going to be running all this wire you need a good way to keep it all straight. So… a few... Read More

When it came to choosing the Automated Lighting standard for Quadomated I was absolutely overwhelmed with choices and possibilities.  There are just so many different manufacturers and standards to choose between, and each of them with a dramatically different set of wiring... Read More

I’ve been spending lots of time working on my automation rules over the past couple weeks, thinking about the activities I do in my life over and over again, and trying to come up with a way to smartly automate them.  One of these routines I do every single day is my morning... Read More

As I’ve played around in this whole world of home automation, I’ve quickly realized that the possibilities are endless, but that in order to do it all I needed more than just a great security/automation panel; I needed a whole house automation system.  So what does this mean?  I... Read More

Run lots of wire!!! Like way more than you think you’ll ever need… because someday you’ll wish you had it! For Quadomated that meant over 8000 feet of home automation wiring… and I still wish we had pulled some more!  Probably sounds like crazy overkill, but think of it this way,... Read More

Might as well start with the big guns!  Probably the most important decision of Quadomated and for any home automation project is which security/automation panel will be the central brains of your system? I researched this question for several months and found the folks at... Read More

One of the primary goals when I started Quadomated was to document the building of a “passive solar smart automated home.”  Throughout this journey I showed bits and pieces of the pre-wiring, wrote posts/took pictures of the individual subsystems, and in a couple places even... Read More