Detection of washing machine / dryer cycle to trigger a notification on completion.Control of lighting when watching movies.Z-Wave control of garage door opener, with sensor to detect the door remaining open.Since these Z-Wave devices are working pretty well, some of the other projects I want to work on in the next few weeks/months are: I can also control these devices from an Android device using the Home Buddy application, even when out of the house. Once the devices were paired, it was pretty easy to configure a scene that would turn on the lights when motion was sensed, and a scene that would turn off the lights 2 minutes after no more motion is sensed. I bought a couple of Z-Wave light switches and motion sensors. The first small project that wanted to accomplish was to automate turning off the lights in the garage, as these tend to be left on. It also has a web server, where you can control your devices and scenes. This will let you control any of the Z-Wave devices in your house, as well create custom scenes. I ordered a Mi Casa Verde VeraLite to use as the controller. And, since Z-Wave uses a wireless protocol, it is very easy to add wireless battery powered devices. Since Z-Wave uses a wireless protocol for sending commands, there aren't the problems from using a powerline protocol. ![]() I decided to try some home automation projects using Z-Wave. The battery powered wireless devices would need to be in range of an IR/RF to X10 bridge in order to send the signals to other devices. Another difficulty when setting up an X-10 network was that there is an extra step to configure battery powered devices. We needed to install a phase couple in order to improve reception of between the different 110V legs. The main problem that we had was with reliability. I (and my wife) was never really happy with the results. A few years ago, I spent some time installing X-10 devices around our house.
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