New Technology & Parenting – Slackers Inc.

I just got word that the city I called home until a couple months ago just got it’s first heavy dump of snow (over 10cm) and traffic this morning was insane as a result.  Over 2 hour commutes for most people since nobody bothered to get their winter tires on ahead of time or do any of the other winter car care checklist items.

Personally I’m enjoying the cloudy day here knowing that it could be worse and it probably will be soon.  I have a bunch of things I planned on doing, like getting my new Insteon thermostat installed and raking up the pine needles but I’ll probably just grab a warm mocha and enjoy the day.

This will be our little one’s first winter, so it should be neat to watch her in the snow as well – I guess we need a toboggan and a harness for our Samoyed to pull her now too…

Today’s episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition showed the Girard family from Voluntown, CT and the incredible hardship and losses they faced.  As is typical of the show, they received a beautiful, heavily customized house to help turn things around for the family.

One of the things that I thought was really neat about this particular house was the whole-home automation they received, allowing the Girard family to control lights, thermostats and other appliances in the house.  It turns out the automation technology used is Insteon, probably the best system available today.

Insteon has been gaining ground on its competitors for years now, partly because of the new devices they keep introducing while competitors like Zwave stagnate, and partly because of the strong enthusiest community there to provide support. 

A great example of this community spirit can be found in the Insteon reviews like this one, where you can really feel the passion the author has for the technology.

I imagine the Girard family will really appreciate the ability to adjust the lighting, fireplace etc in response to things like turning on the TV or getting home after work – I know I do.  After years of using X10 and thinking it was better than nothing but not good enough, Insteon does everything we need and didn’t require us to hire an expensive electrician or home automation specialty company.

Best of luck to the Girard family moving forward!

I’m sure I’m not alone in the geek world when I dream of a house I can control with my voice, and it can respond back with an informative answer or confirmation of my command.  Ideally, I would say something like “House, do I have any new emails?” and it would respond “Checking…No new emails since 4:07.”  I would then say “Excellent.  House, prepare the home theatre, I’d like to watch the latest Futurama” (this is my dream afterall, and Futurama would be back on the air in my dream.)

While my house isn’t this cool yet, I imagine it could be with enough time and money spent.  The problem is, most people (myself included) will indulge if it’s below a certain effort/cost threshold, but leave things relegated to dreams if it surpasses this mental figure.  That’s why I was excited to hear about the NetLinc. 

Essentially the NetLinc is an Insteon device (home automation primer or Insteon Wikipedia Entry) that contains a built-in webserver/control interface that allows you to control your home automation devices from any web browser or iphone/ipod touch.  The part that makes it cool is that on the effort threshold it’s extremely low…like, you just plug it into the wall low.  Ok, you need to plug it into your network too, but one cable and that’s it. 

I don’t have one yet, but take a look at this review: NetLinc (SmartLinc) Review and decide for yourself if you want to go the full-blown computer controlled route or if the lower effort route is better for you.  Either way, you’ve gotta admit – This is cool stuff.