In a smart home, many functions that used to be the imagination of people can be realised. To begin with, you can actually transfer calls around the house and assign distinctive ringtones for different members of the family. By setting up a home-phone system, you can install an intercom system within your house. Imagine the convenience of such a system. You wouldn't have to scream to get your kids down for dinner by then. Whatsmore, if you installed a Doorcom system, and if you're outstation when someone calls at your place, your Doorcom system can actually get in touch you and allow you to speak to your visitors!  

            A smart home gives you the privilege of controlling your house. And if you're leading a hectic lifestyle, you would find a smart home extremely user-friendly and convenient. By setting up a home local area network, you can use voice recognition to control devices around your house! You can call your house to tell it to turn down the lights, switch on the heater and many more. There are sensors and detectors installed in and around a smart home. For example, control thermostats can actually detect temperature changes and sets the home according to the weather. How about checking email on your refrigerator or surfing the internet on your kitchen devices like the microwave? Sounds almost impossible? With a smart home, you can actually carry out the above-mentioned tasks! These can be done by installing the latest touch-screen computer monitors to the appliances and linking the web to them. With such technology, you can then organise your shopping lists and check your emails whilst you are cooking. Furthermore, you can even order your groceries online or search for a new recipe to try out. 

            All these can be realised in a smart home. To enable the integration of various devices, home-network routers or residential gateways are required. These routers act as the interface between your network connection to your internet service provider and your home local area network, receiving all incoming data and sending it to the correct machine. Setting up a home network isn't as complicated as it was thought to be. The main technology that makes a home router work is the Network Address Translation (NAT). NAT actually translates between the IP addresses of the computers on your network and the public IP address that they all share, thus making sure that everything falls into the right place. Some home-network routers also contain firewalls. This increases the level of security and helps keep hackers out of your computer. 

            Apart from routers, a common language that all the devices in the home-automation network share and understand is required. Today, the common language, or protocol most widely used is X10. X10 does not require any specific network architecture other than your existing electrical system. X10 sends the control signals from the controller over the power lines to devices around the house that receive and translate X10. These receiver outlets are known as X10 modules and most of them have a local-control feature that enables you to manually control your devices. Since every module in the house can detect the signals sent from the X10 controller, ways of identifying which signals are meant for which device are needed. Thus, codes are used to differentiate the sent signals. X10 have many types of modules, with the main ones being lamp modules, appliance modules, universal modules and X10 receptacles. Lamp modules control the lights, appliance modules the household appliances and universal modules for special purpose appliances.

            X10 has a wide range of controllers. Stand-alone controllers are the simplest and most inexpensive controllers. They don't require a PC to function. Just plug them into a wall outlet, program them and they are ready for use. Programmable controllers and timers which are mounted on walls or placed on desks or tables enable you to control a number of X10 modules either manually or automatically. Telephone interfaces allow you to dial into your network from any Touch-Tone phone and control your home devices from the call. Sensor controllers and interfaces enable X10 commands to be activated under unpredictable circumstances, for example when it gets dark outside, these controllers will send out signals and activate certain functions. There are also more sophisticated controllers like the wireless controllers, touch panels and PC interfaces.

            For the meantime, X10 is the most widely used technology. However, in the near future, new technologies will emerge, thus taking smart homes technology one step further. New technologies like CEBus (Consumer Electronics Bus) and UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) show promising signs of success. The integration of various home devices will help make our lives easier and much more simpler.