Skip to content

About The Griffith Home Automation Project

Note

Always a work in progress. If there's something you see that's incomplete or completely confusing, let me know.

Automation is more than...

Automation is more than being able to control devices from your tablet or phone. In fact, too many devices are sold solely on the "cool" factor of being able to control it remotely.

Here's the problem with that. It's fluff. I don't want to control my home's gadgets with my phone. That requires handling a gadget. The idea is to automate our home based upon our natural state of being. We want our home to learn our patterns and respond to them. This is also the largest hurdle between semi-automation and full automation. Machine learning is not something our home does yet. But I'm sure that will come.

For now, we try to identify what we want to happen when and then create automation routines to closely mirror those conditions.

The Bones of our House

We live in a 1973 Hallcraft townhome with 8' ceilings and a flat roof. Designing automation systems that are functional but also fit our design style is a challenge. We don't like exposed wires, and we don't mess around with batteries, so where we can, we wire up permanent power and network connections to devices. Where we can't...well, we make it so we can. When devices can be powered by our network switch (PoE) we do it.

Who are we?

We are the Griffith family. We live in Scottsdale, Arizona. She chases criminals, I help people buy and sell real estate, fix things, and renovate property.

About Me

I'm as active on social as my jam-packed brain will allow: