Smart Homes. DUMmIES 3RD EDITION. by Danny Briere and Pat Hurley FOR

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1 Smart Homes FOR DUMmIES 3RD EDITION by Danny Briere and Pat Hurley

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3 Smart Homes FOR DUMmIES 3RD EDITION

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5 Smart Homes FOR DUMmIES 3RD EDITION by Danny Briere and Pat Hurley

6 Smart Homes For Dummies, 3rd Edition Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ Copyright 2007 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) , fax (978) Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) , fax (317) , or online at Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REP- RESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CRE- ATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CON- TAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FUR- THER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ. For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at , outside the U.S. at , or fax For technical support, please visit Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Control Number: ISBN: Manufactured in the United States of America

7 About the Authors Danny Briere founded TeleChoice, Inc., a telecommunications consulting company, in 1985 and now serves as CEO of the company. Widely known throughout the telecommunications and networking industry, Danny has written more than one thousand articles about telecommunications topics and has authored or edited ten books, including Internet Telephony For Dummies, Wireless Home Networking For Dummies (now in its second edition), Wireless Hacks and Mods for Dummies, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 PC For Dummies, and Home Theater For Dummies. He is frequently quoted by leading publications on telecommunications and technology topics and can often be seen on major TV networks, providing analysis on the latest communications news and breakthroughs. Danny splits his time between Mansfield Center, Connecticut, and his island home on Great Diamond Island, Maine, with his wife and four children. Pat Hurley is Director of Research with TeleChoice, Inc., and specializes in emerging telecommunications and digital home technologies, particularly in all the latest consumer electronics, access gear, and home technologies, including wireless LANs, DSL, cable modems, satellite services, and homenetworking services. Pat frequently consults with the leading telecommunications carriers, equipment vendors, consumer goods manufacturers, and other players in the telecommunications and consumer electronics industries. Pat is the coauthor of Internet Telephony For Dummies, Smart Homes For Dummies, Wireless Home Networking For Dummies, Wireless Hacks and Mods for Dummies, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 PC For Dummies, and Home Theater For Dummies. He lives in San Diego, California, with his wife, a fiery red-headed toddler named Annabel, and two smelly dogs.

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9 Dedication I dedicate this book to my wife, Holly, and publicly and officially confess that she has a better memory and is smarter than I. Plus, she s usually right. I thank her dearly for putting up with me while I put in long hours at the office to finish this book, including the 19 times that I was late for dinner. Okay, so that s a low number. Okay, so Holly also doesn t exaggerate as much as I do. In any case, I hope that she will continue to let me infiltrate the home with smart-home techniques (which she secretly likes but won t say) and at least once say that she likes ONE thing I ve installed. Danny I dedicate this book to my wife, Christine, for allowing me to bore her nearly to death with long, breathless discussions of networking toys that no normal person wants to spend more than three minutes talking about, and for letting me scare the living daylights out of the dogs with remote-controlled gizmos. To thank her more completely, I promise to not bring a robot into the home thus avoiding all those dog psychiatrist bills well, unless it s a robotic dog poop picker-upper! Pat

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11 Authors Acknowledgments It takes a lot of effort by a lot of people to put a book together. We probably can t give proper acknowledgment to everyone who s given us advice, opinions, and guidance as we ve worked on this project, but we d like to try. For this third edition, we d like to specifically thank the following folks for sharing their knowledge and providing their extremely helpful insights into the world of the smart home. To name just a few, we d like to thank Ian Hendler, Grant Sullivan, Marc Ceraculo, Mara White, and Jack Merrow at Leviton (sorry for leaving you guys at the dinner table during that work crisis!), Gordon Sell at Gordon Sell PR for Canton, Alex Elliot at NextAlarm, Joelle Kenealey at Coltrin Associates for Control4, Eric Smith at Control4, Julie Stern at LEGO Systems, Karl Pawlewicz from Griffin PR for Middle Atlantic, Michael Cukrow and Mark Tracy at Middle Atlantic Products, Barry Haaser at Echelon, Ralph Maniscalco at Honeywell, Michelle Laird at SmartLabs, Brad Kayton at 4HomeMedia, Casey Munck and Frank Sterns at Niles Audio, Roger Dressler and Jeanne Alford at Dolby Labs, Adam Weissman and Jeff Talmadge at Denon, Ted White at the Green Glue Company, Joel Sider at Microsoft, Dave Gilbert at Sound Seal, Steve Muellner and Andrew Corkill at Meade, and Melanie Jensen and Colleen Logan at ifit. And to all the others we forgot thank you too! For our earlier editions of the book, Sandy Daniels kept us organized, connected, and sane. She prodded us along, set up interviews, found people we couldn t find ourselves, and generally acted like a bulldog in breaking through corporate mazes to find the right people to interview for the book. If you ever meet her, you ll wonder how such a nice person can be so effective. We also have built on the help of literally dozens of vendors during our research in previous editions of this book. Special thanks go to Keith Smith at Siemon, David Allred at DirecTV DSL, Jeff Denenholz at X10 Wireless Technologies, Mike Hernandez at ChannelPlus, Peter Radscliff and Jim Gist at Monster Cable, Doug Hagan at Netgear, Matt Graves and Sean Ryan at Listen. com, Nick Smith and Vanessa Tuell at Request, Tom Reed of the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, Dave Thompson of CopperGate Communication, Brian McLeod at Harmony, Andrew Liu at Intel, Mel Richardson and his team at BellSouth, Lawrence Cheng at XM Radio, Tom Lucke, Fred Bargetzi, and Ray O Sullivan at Crestron, Paul Cunningham at Cunningham Security in Portland, Maine, and George Snyder at Home Automated Living. Finally, we want to thank the Wiley team who (once again!) bought into our vision of a smart home, and made sure we crossed our i s and dotted our t s (or something like that). Thanks especially to Susan Pink, our project editor, and Melody Layne, our acquisitions editor.

12 Publisher s Acknowledgments We re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following: Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development Project Editor: Susan Pink Acquisitions Editor: Melody Layne Copy Editor: Susan Pink Technical Editor: Allen Wyatt, DCI Editorial Manager: Jodi Jensen Media Development and Quality Assurance: Angela Denny, Kate Jenkins, Steven Kudirka, Kit Malone Media Development Coordinator: Jenny Swisher Media Project Supervisor: Laura Moss-Hollister Media Development Associate Producer: Richard Graves Editorial Assistant: Amanda Foxworth Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case Cartoons: Rich Tennant ( Composition Services Project Coordinator: Patrick Redmond Layout and Graphics: Claudia Bell, Stacie Brooks, Denny Hager, Joyce Haughey, Stephanie D. Jumper, Jennifer Mayberry, Barbara Moore, Alicia B. South Proofreaders: Todd Lothery, Dwight Ramsey, Charles Spencer, Evelyn W. Still Indexer: Aptara Anniversary Logo Design: Richard Pacifico Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director Publishing for Consumer Dummies Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director Composition Services Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

13 Contents at a Glance Introduction...1 Part I: Future-Perfect Homes...9 Chapter 1: Mi Casa, Cool Casa...11 Chapter 2: Zen and the Art of Whole-Home Networking...23 Chapter 3: Cool Stuff Home Networks Can Do...47 Chapter 4: Timelines and Budgets...63 Part II: Making Your Home an Entertainment Center...71 Chapter 5: Breaking the Entertainment Bottleneck Without Breaking the Bank...73 Chapter 6: Getting Video Where You Want It...95 Chapter 7: Wiring a Video Network Chapter 8: Bringing You Music Chapter 9: Running Audio Here, There, and Everywhere Part III: Now We re Communicating! Chapter 10: Planning a Phone System Chapter 11: : Making the Phone Connection Part IV: Livin Off the Fat of the LAN Chapter 12: A Cornucopia of Computers Chapter 13: All Roads Lead to the Net Chapter 14: Designing a Data LAN Chapter 15: Choosing the Parts for a Wired Data LAN Chapter 16: Alternatives to a Wired Data LAN Part V: Keeping the Bad Guys at Bay Security Chapter 17: Home Security Boot Camp Chapter 18: Wiring a Security System...313

14 Part VI: Putting It All Together Home Automation and Control Chapter 19: Home Automation Extravaganza Chapter 20: Making Home Automation a Reality Part VII: The Part of Tens Chapter 21: Ten Common Pitfalls When Building Your Smart Home Chapter 22: Top Ten Toys of the Future Index...383

15 Table of Contents Introduction...1 About This Book...2 What You re Not to Read...2 Foolish Assumptions...3 How This Book Is Organized...3 Part I: Future-Perfect Homes...4 Part II: Making Your Home an Entertainment Center...4 Part III: Now We re Communicating!...4 Part IV: Livin Off the Fat of the LAN...5 Part V: Keeping the Bad Guys at Bay Security...5 Part VI: Putting It All Together Home Automation and Control...5 Part VII: The Part of Tens...6 Icons Used in This Book...6 Where to Go from Here...7 Part I: Future-Perfect Homes...9 Chapter 1: Mi Casa, Cool Casa Living in Your Smart Home...12 Starting your day...12 Getting down to work...13 Dinner time...14 Peace at last!...15 The home-network revolution...16 What s in a Smart Home?...16 Why Network Your Home?...18 What Does It Take to Network Your Home?...20 Chapter 2: Zen and the Art of Whole-Home Networking All Together Now!...23 Moving Your Network into the Closet...26 The contents of your wiring closet...27 The location of your wiring closet...28 Feeding Audio and Video from the Media Center...29 The contents of your media center...30 Setting up your media center...31 Choosing Cables...32 Cable categories...33 Patch me in!...35