Review: HomeRemote and iControl Home Control Kits
To NETWORK AND PROTECT
January 2008 By Marshal M. RosenthalThat’s exactly true of both HomeRemote and iControl: both use ZWave technology for easy integration with your home network and are the techno-equivalent of that old lady who keeps an eye out for everything that’s going on from her window. Only now it’s me who will be playing Big Brother.
Give Me A Home That’s Networked
So let’s start with HomeRemote, which, besides controlling your appliances and providing security, can also be monitored at any distance through use of a PC/laptop or cell phone. The Gateway needs to be physically plugged into an Ethernet cable as well as a home network router in order to function. Power it up and install the software on your PC - the “Wizard” makes the process fairly smooth on Windows XP (it also works with Vista but Mac users need not apply). Next you customize the rooms in your home and what you plan to use: in this case a Wireless Control Lamp module plugged into a lamp and a Wireless Video Camera placed on the balcony facing the street. The handheld remote activates/joins both to the network using ZWave and informs the Gateway (other company’s ZWave devices can be used as well so there’s a wide choice available).
Finishing the installation means I can now view my setup while at home on the network or remotely using a Web browser to do such things as control the dimmer and “look” through the video camera. This can also be done through a cell phone: the free trial begins when you download an application and activate it on a supported model. But because of local server problems, we used the activation code so that my friend’s Blackberry could control a setup back in HomeRemote’s office. So here we could do such things as control and dim a number of lights and even open/close a window shade incrementally. It’s a lot more portable doing it this way than through a laptop for sure.
iControl, You Control, We All Control
The iControl package is reminiscent of Russian Nesting dolls: the first layer holds instructions; next is the iControl Box; below that a tiny network camera, motion sensor, lamp module and door switch and keychain remote; finally some miscellaneous cords and cables and power supplies. With the exception of the iControl Box everything is very compact - most especially the wireless camera. The iControl Box has to be attached to a router so it can access a home network and the Internet, but ZWave takes care of making sure all the other devices can “see” each other. In fact the motion sensor came “on” while I was fiddling with the camera and told it to take a picture (iControl having created some presets for me to use). The setup is all done through a Web browser - there’s no software to load.
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