Communication Protocols

When devices “talk” your home becomes smarter. But which communication protocols are most suited for your home? Here we give you input.

From the days of hand gestures, smoke signals and cave paintings,communication in the world has come a long way. So much so that it’s evolved to communication between humans and machines rather than just between humans. We are now at an age where we are witnessing and facilitating an even greater degree of communication between machines.

That last one is particulary significant when it comes to home automation. For effective communication amongst the devices that make your home smart, there exist communication protocols. And since you must spend quite a bit of money to get your home automated, it’ll be worth spending some time learning about the popular protocols and their advantages and disadvantages.

Get the lowdown right here:

X10 

X10 is a greybeard among communication protocols – in that it has been around for a seriously long time. The protocol was introduced in 1975 and has been used by home automation enthusiasts across the world since then.

Many of the technologies that came later would adopt the method in which X10 functioned- by utilizing the existing powerline in the home for communication. Using the protocol, one can easily control utilities such as lamps and household appliances. Not just that, you can even monitor doors and windows and detect motion, not to mention the ability to replace wall switches.

To get geekier about how X10 works, it sends bursts of 120 kHz(RF) signals. These bursts represent digital information. The signal is sent to the powerline at the zero  crossing of the AC sine wave. This is so that the interference can be minimized. You can assign every X10 product with a house code as well as a unit code – that’s up to 256 unique addresses.

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