When most people think of DIY they envision a nostalgic scene involving hammers, nails, and wood – good old fashioned build-it-yourself work that leaves your hands satisfyingly dirty.
In the 21st century, however, DIY does not always involve band saws and sandpaper. Today’s home makeovers can be far more high tech and require trips to the computer store rather than the hardware store.
PC World magazine recently profiled do-it-yourself man Sam Cox, a graduate student in Digital Imaging, who gave his home a security upgrade by automating his home on his own.
Cox is a pioneer in the growing world of “smart homes” – houses that incorporate the latest technology for energy conservation, security and ease of living.
Home automation systems usually require devices in the home that communicate with a computer at a remote location. Some can be controlled with your cell phone, tablet computer or laptop, so that while you are at work you can turn the heat down or turn on the air conditioner.
These devices are both environmentally and financially beneficial, and can allow electronic devices and appliances to be fully turned off when they’re not in use, eliminating this equipment’s usual “vampire” electrical power use when in standby mode. Cox’s security system is set up to take pictures when there is a home intruder and e-mail photographs to Cox’s smart phone. He has also been able to set his smart phone up to control the lights in all areas of the house, and created an alarm clock that reads him the weather report and lets him know if he has new e-mail. It also transmits his favourite radio station into every room of the house.
Cox is not content with his automated home yet. In the future he would like to create curtains that open and close automatically, home automation that has speech recognition capacities, and devices that can verbally read the text of e-mails or web articles. While your average home improvement project requires saws and screwdrivers, Cox’s DIY tools include RFID systems, computers and high tech smart phones.
