By Dan Cash Construction • Design • Energy Saving • General Information • Renovation • • 0 Comments

Smart Homes Are The Future of Architecture.

Over recent years the number of people taking up Smart Home Technology has increased exponentially. As digital has penetrated all areas of our lives, from TV and radio to phones, cameras, and audio players the more we expect from it. Once upon a time ‘home automation’ used to mean a thermostat on the wall which would conveniently turn the heating on when it got too cold and being able to set the video to record a show if you were out.

Today, with smart home automation, that’s the bare minimum we’d expect from the products we introduce into our homes. If your heating doesn’t know when you’re home or when you’re out, and your TV box doesn’t record entire series’ of your favourite shows when they’re on a number of channels all at the same time it’s like living in the stone age! In fact we’ve grown so accustomed to devices which work autonomously, from vacuum cleaners to doorbells which can recognise who’s coming to the door and let them in or keep them out that there seems to be nothing that Smart Home Technology won’t be able to do in the future, even if it can’t do it today.

In the same way that it’s now impossible to dream of designing a building which doesn’t have power cables, water and gas pipework, it will also soon be inconceivable that a building can be designed without home automation in mind as well. Read more

By Dan Cash Construction • Design • Do It Yourself • General Information • Home Entertainment • Management • WiFi • • • 0 Comments

There’s A Smart Future Ahead For Architecture

The Utopia for the ultimate in home technology has always been complete voice control and automation. The idea is often mocked, as evidence by such artists and film makers as Heath Robinson and Nick Park. However, the advances in microtechnology and electronics means that many of the ideas which were the realm of science fiction and comic books are now either available today or currently in development. So how do you go about futureproofing right through from planning to building?

We’re rapidly becoming familiar with smart phones, smart TV and smart speakers, using apps and voice controls to operate heating, lighting, viewing and blinds for example, but is the technology moving faster than architects, designers and builders can keep up?

Manufacturers are busy thinking how they can make their goods connected to the internet of things, we have fridges which will tell you when food is nearing its best before, blinds which will obey your commands, work on a timer, or independently when factoring the sun’s position in the sky, and ovens which can turn themselves off when your roast reaches the optimum shade of cooked, so you don’t have to keep opening the door as the timer runs down, just to check. Read more

By Dan Cash CCTV • Construction • Design • Do It Yourself • General Information • WiFi • • • • 0 Comments

Integrating Smart Technology into Architecture

One day, well, numerous times over several years, everything went digital. In the 90s mobile phones switched from analogue to digital, TV went digital a few years ago, and many radio stations are now internet (digital) and DAB only.

Analogue makes sense to us, it moves in waves like sound, and it’s something we understand. As the joke goes, there are 10 different types of people in the world, those who understand digital, and those who don’t. Yet, whether we can make sense of it or not, it’s faster, more energy efficient, more adaptive, and easier to make tiny devices which can then be used to control bigger devices. And it’s these IoT devices which we are now buying and introducing to our homes, in turn, making them a stand-alone internet of things. Read more