Chapter 1

Home Automation 101

In This Chapter

arrow Examining changes in home automation over the years

arrow Benefitting from automating your home

arrow Understanding home automation technology

“How do we make life better?”

“How do we make more time for what really matters?”

“Why can’t television commercials for technology companies incorporate music that doesn’t involve finger snaps, hand claps, xylophones, and ukuleles?”

Those three questions haunt me every day, as I’m sure they do you, gentle reader. However, only the first two issues are ones that I think mankind will actually be able to do anything about in the near future. That said, I concentrate on those in this book.

People have always had to work, and we’ve always tried to find ways to make that work easier, whether by developing better tools and technologies to do the work or by making other folks or things do the work for us. Sick of digging up dirt with your bare hands to plant seeds? Let’s invent the plow and make our cattle do the heavy lifting. No longer want to beat your clothes with a rock in the nearest creek? We’ll invent the washing machine, then. Don’t want to carry ten jugs with you to the river to gather water? ...

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