Protecting your most valuable assets: your home and its contents
In many respects, this aspect of home automation is even more important than lighting controls and media streaming; unfortunately, it’s even less mature as a market. We’ll help guide you through the wilderness.
In our mind, the ideal system would be capable of monitoring all our doors and windows, detecting motion inside the house, and controlling our irrigation system. It would also include sensors capable of detecting disasters such as fire or a burst water pipe, send alerts to our smartphone whenever an unexpected event occurs, and provide video coverage of the interior and perimeter of our home that we could access from the Internet.
No one package does all of those things, which means you’ll need to mix and match solutions to get to home-automation nerdvana.
The three best home-monitoring and surveillance packages we’ve encountered are Eaton’s Home Heartbeat, iControl Network’s iControl, and Logitech’s WiLife. Your other alternative is to deploy a conventional Cat5 system, although this category is limited to video surveillance using webcams.
Home Heartbeat is a robust home-monitoring system that can alert you to the status of doors and windows (open or closed), power receptacles (on or off), and movement inside your house. A starter pack consisting of a base station, a key fob for receiving alerts (originating from your land line), and one open/closed sensor sells for $225. Add-on sensors cost $40 to $50 each. Home Heartbeat can also detect water leaks and automatically shut off the water supply using an optional controller and a custom ball valve. It uses the ZigBee wireless networking standard and can be controlled over the Internet (you’ll need the $160 broadband gateway, and a subscription fee applies). But the system doesn’t include cameras, so it can’t show you what’s happening inside or around your house.
IControl’s advanced starter kit ($250) consists of a broadband interface, a wireless webcam, a lamp-control module, a motion sensor, a door/window sensor, and a remote control. It can be expanded with a host of accessories, including a thermostat, a smoke/heat detector, and a water sensor (although it doesn’t provide any means of shutting the water off). The system uses the Z-Wave wireless protocol, so it can be incorporated into any Z-Wave network. A subscription fee applies.
Logitech’s WiLife system is limited to video surveillance, but it comes with the most robust software we’ve seen in this segment. A starter kit with one camera costs $300; add-on cameras cost $230 (the system is limited to six). It uses power-line networking, which eliminates the need to string Cat5 cable, and the company offers both indoor and outdoor cameras with motion-activated recording capabilities. You can monitor the cameras from the Internet, but there’s a subscription fee if you want email and cellphone alerts.
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| Tucked behind a vase, iControl’s battery-controlled motion sensor can operate unobtrusively. |
Place a motion sensor at tabletop height and it will detect an intruder’s movement while ignoring any pets moving about the house. You’ll quickly tune out—or turn off—a security system that constantly cries wolf.
Since you can’t predict where a criminal will attempt to break into your house, it’s best to place a sensor on every window and exterior door. Sensors typically consist of two blocks connected by a magnetic field. When the blocks are separated and the magnetic field is broken, the master controller sends an alert to your email address or to your cell phone via SMS. Sometimes, what doesn’t happen is as important as what does. If you have latchkey kids, for instance, you might want to set up an alert to notify you if the front door doesn’t open within a specific time window.
Sensors can tell you only that motion has been detected or a door or window has been opened (and if the window is simply smashed, it might not even do that). Another line of defense is to deploy Internet-connected video cameras with motion detectors. We recommend placing an outdoor camera at each corner of your home to monitor its perimeter. A box-shaped house would require only four cameras, but a home with an unusual layout or one with recessed entry doors might require more. A web camera with a two-way intercom placed outside your front door or at your gate will allow you to communicate with a visitor without having to approach or open the door.
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| This Logitech WiLife camera keeps tabs on the front door. But consider all the other possible points of entry, as well. |
We’ve been jazzed about WiLife’s security camera system ever since we got our paws on its spy camera. The spy cam itself is dorky as all get-out, but its software is amazing.
We’re not big fans of power-line networking, but it works here because the benefits outweigh the drawbacks: All you need in order to deploy a camera is a nearby electrical outlet. The network’s narrow bandwidth isn’t a problem because you’re not transmitting sound and the video isn’t high resolution. You can outfit the indoor cameras with night vision or three different lenses, and the outdoor cameras don’t need enclosures because they’re completely weatherized.
You can view your cameras from any Internet connection. An optional subscription to WiLife Platinum ($80 per year) adds email and cellphone alerts, remote playback, and 50MB of online storage. Setting up the system is dead simple.
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| 1. INSTALL YOUR CAMERAS AND PLUG THEM IN: First, install the WiLife software; then restart your computer. When you start the software for the first time, you’ll be asked to set aside some disk space that the system will use for recording its video captures. You’ll then be prompted to set up a remote-viewing account. The WiLife system will use your broadband Internet access to upload live video from your cameras, which you’ll be able to view from anywhere. The installer software will then ask how many cameras are in your system and which type of USB adapter you’re using. |
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2. PLACE YOUR CAMERAS AND PLUG THEM IN: Power-line networking can be finicky; we’ve learned from experience not to permanently mount a camera until we’re sure it’s going to work with the receptacle we’re planning to use. The cameras won’t work with Z-Wave receptacles, either, because those receptacles have built-in surge suppressors. Once you’ve temporarily plugged your WiLife cameras into receptacles near where you’ll be using them, go back to the PC and click Next to resume the setup process. |
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| 3. CONNECT THE POWER-LINE USB ADAPTER: Next, plug the power-line adapter into an electrical socket near your PC. The adapter has its own built-in surge suppressor and will not function properly if it’s plugged into a second suppressor (don’t use an extension cord, either). Plug one end of a USB cable into the power-line adapter and the other into your PC’s USB port (do not use a USB hub). When you click Next, the software will find your cameras and configure your network. The adapter will grab the WMV video that the cameras are running through the power-line network and display it using WiLife’s user interface. |
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| 4. NAME YOUR CAMERAS: If the software was able to locate all of your cameras, it will provide thumbnail screens for each one and ask you to provide a descriptive name for each one. This way, you’ll know which camera is having problems even if you can’t see the video. If the software cannot find one of your cameras, reset the camera by unplugging it and plugging it in again or by using a paperclip to reset the camera to its default settings. If the software still can’t find the camera, you’ll need to move it to a different power outlet and try again. |
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