Home Automation (X10 / Z-Wave etc.)

OK - so hopefully I will get an office built external to the house.

I was thinking about using home automation to control a panel heater and possibly a few less important things in there from the main house.

Theory being - I would not be in there every day so when i am having my breakfast I could heat the place up ready if I was heading over there - and if I was going somewhere else I would not need to heat the space needlessly.

I'm looking for anyone who has nerded out on this stuff and can offer any decent advice about range etc.

Really can't help much but did come across this http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...lopment-hardwa

There are probably more deidcated forums but plenty of ideas over at the Raspberry Pi forum http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/

AV forums is a good place to start.

I looked at this recently and its a bit of a mine field that can lead you to getting very carried away.

I started looking at distributed Audio, Distributed Video and intelligent lighting. This was then added to with Heating and Security. By this point the quotes I was receiving for the above in a low to mid range system was £25k plus for a 3 bed house. At this point i decided to not do most of it and do the bits i can do myself (video and music). I managed to do the lot for about £2500 and am back looking at Lighting now and looking at RAKO systems to bring the costs down.

Hope this helps a little

Thanks chaps.

Scope is small (though already expanded) to:

1 Heater
1 Light switch
A few appliances (computer etc.)
Probably a security device (PIR)

I have a wife, so no need to automate the iron, kettle, washing machine etc.

Still wont be cheap mate as a lot of the money goes into the coding to get it working together.

lighting you should look at Rako as its wireless and doesn't mean ripping the house up.

In terms of heating Honeywell do a wireless intelligent control system that can be controlled off an iPad.

You will need a NAS that has the ability to control the systems you want. Id look at a QNAP as it has the ability to control this stuff almost out of the box.

if you want to share media then connect up some apple TV's to stream media to you TV's from your NAS and a Sonos system for music.

Alternatively if your feeling rich there are better solutions to the above but as mentioned its expensive.

There are some cheap systems, Screwfix do one thats relatively comprehensive.

http://www.screwfix.com/p/lightwaver...FePHtAodSSAA3A