Bechoff home automation

[Tomi Engdahl]

I visited Elkom and Automation fairs ( http://www.finnexpo.fi/exhibition.asp?id=1492 ) held in Helsinki Finland.

Beckhoff was displaying some interesting home automation technology on their booth.

Beckhoff Home Automation
http://www.beckhoff.com/english/default ... mation.htm

The “intelligent home” offers plenty of hidden potential for architects, contractors, building companies, and ultimately of course for users. Similar to the configuration found in larger buildings, all data points required for home automation are connected directly to the Beckhoff Bus Terminal system. The large number of different Bus Terminals enables integration of all sensors and actuators, such as push-buttons for lighting control, energy consumption metering, or a weather station for recording climate data.

Local I/O stations are distributed throughout the home and networked with the central PC Control via Ethernet. Control tasks are handled by a CX series Embedded PC from Beckhoff with the Windows CE operating system, for example. The standard Ethernet network is used for PCs, telephones, home entertainment, and as a bus system for building control tasks.

Building control functions can be displayed and operated via Beckhoff Control Panels distributed throughout the house. Messages can be retrieved via SMS, video, voice mail or e-mail via a touch screen interface. On the software side, the TwinCAT automation software is the core of the home automation system. It can be used to configure a wide range of building functions: For example, the „intelligent“ building enables different basic scenarios for lighting, room temperature/climate or background music for day, night, weekends, events, etc. to be implemented.