THE GARAGE
I don't imagine Sonos and Soundcast anticipated their products being use in conjunction with each other. The Soundcast is designed primarily for streaming music from an iPod (you plug the MP3 player into the dock on top), but it also has an auxiliary input. I plug the Sonos ZP80 into the Soundcast base station in the garage (yes, I have an Ethernet port there,too) and stream music from there to Soundcast's OutCast battery-powered speaker when I'm working in the garden.
Since the Wayne-Dalton garage-door openers (left) are Z-Wave enabled, we can have the lights inside the house turn on automatically when we pull up the driveway and open the garage.
In addition to its Z-Wave capabilities, you can program the door's "pet" mode, so that it opens just far enough for your dog or cat to get out, you can turn on its light only (and it will automatically turn itself off), and there's a "delay" button that will give you a few seconds to get out the door before it closes.
John didn't realize the door openers were wireless and that the wall-mounted remotes operate on batteries, so he had run electrical wire to those locations. Wayne-Dalton also provides battery-operated keypads that you can install outside the garage (we haven't done this,yet). The keypads allow you to open the door from the outside even if you don't have a remote.
Page 3: The Media Room: Wiring and Video
Page 5: The Home Office and the Home Run
Page 6: The Kitchen and the Video Surveillance System
Page 7: The Garage
Page 8: The Solar Power System
Comments are closed on this article
ajuhawk
May 05, 2008 at 6:03am
I'm currently remodeling my home and would love to have more info on the Z-Wave stuff you selected, how you configured it, etc.
tony2tonez
May 05, 2008 at 11:38am
I was also interested in more about lighting control and more information on Z-wave. I was planning on starting to do my home automation and was reading about Z-wave. Maybe another section added to the forums on this topic would be great for ppl to reply back with ideas and feedback.
Good article and very interesting.
zitro62
May 04, 2008 at 6:06am
Great stuff! Thanks for writing this up and walking us through your experience.
Did you hook up your HVAC to z-wave functionality? I'm curious to know more info on what you decided to do in this area...
thanks!
mikeart03a
May 02, 2008 at 9:58pm
Interesting stuff you got going on there. I see that you're using a piece of carpetting to help dampen speaker vibration on the pull out trays. Not too many people think of doing that. I use a small piece of cork between my speakers and the carpetting to help deaden the noise from the woofers so that I don't disturb my neighbors below.
- mike_art03a
IT Technician
Gov't of Canada
Shalbatana
May 02, 2008 at 8:01am
So when's the PC lab north BBQ and music festival???? I'm there!
There's no time like the future.
Print
