Saturday, September 02, 2006

Project 1: COMPLETE!

I dropped by Automated Outlet this week to pick up the tabletop pedestal, and while there, picked up a slave switch, and some lamp modules on sale with an open box discount. This allowed me to do a little more for project 1 than I had planned, but I could do the whole living room and master bedroom.

I took the universal transceiver initally installed in the bedroom and moved it to the living room and put the 1 rocker/4 button faceplate on it. That, combined with a couple of the new lamp modules allows me to control all the living room lights both together and individually from the single switch. I also took the slave switch and installed at the other end of the 3-way switch so that we can once again control the overhead lights from both switches.

Furthermore, I took the standard transceiver initially installed in the living room and moved it to the bedroom to control only the overhead light. I installed the extra universal transceiver that came with the starter kit into the new tabletop pedestal with an 8-button faceplate, so I can control the overhead light, both of our reading lamps (individually as well as together), plus be able to turn out the lights in the living room if necessary.

Project 2 is supposed to turn on the lights in the living room automatically when someone walks in. Fortunately, the extra modules I picked up for project 1 go a long way to making project 2 easier. The only things left for project 2 are appropriate motion sensors and a UPB I/O module (which I'm still a little unclear on). However, it doesn't look like I'll be able to get to any of this until after the new year, when we get bonus checks... so for now, Home Automation Starter blog is unlikely to be updated for a while, unless something goes wrong with the current modules, or I decide to re-program them for some reason... until then, happy automating.