Integrating the Smart Home & its Owner, books 1 and 2 [Paperback]

Andy Lynn Jackson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2003

"If you have ever wished that you could have the security and convenience of a smart home, I'm here to tell you from experience that you can. . . . and you really don't have to spend a lot of money if you don't want to do so. Whether you're a geek or not, home automation technology is within your grasp. You can discover how you can make your home a safer, easier place to live. It doesn't matter whether you're experienced in this sort of thing, because you can learn in less time than you think. Did you know that it's not unusual for upscale homeowners to pay $30,000 to $50,000 for high end home automation? I can show you how to do it for one-tenth of that. In fact, you don't even have to spend that much. If you just want to get your feet wet and spend twenty to thirty dollars on your house, you can do so and still accomplish some cool things. If by chance you find that the bug has "bitten", you can later build upon what you've done BECAUSE. . . I'll show you the RIGHT WAY to approach home automation, and sources for lots of useful products. Using a 'modular' approach, it becomes easy to achieve your goals. Once you learn the basics of security systems, X10, infrared, and a few other relatively simple things, you'll be amazed at how easy they are to integrate under a single smart home controller. Integrating the Smart Home & its Owner presents all sorts of great tips on products, techniques, and ECONOMICAL ways of doing home automation with JDS Stargate. Following this is an illustrated step-by-step installation complete with photos and diagrams so you can see how it all fits together in the real world." - The author (Andy Jackson) has founded several home entertainment companies in the Cincinnati, Ohio area, and is also a former network engineer holding Microsoft and Cisco certifications.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...great job explaining many of the technical issues without overwhelming the reader... good step-by-step approach ... easy to follow ...." -- Jeff Stein, JDS Technologies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: integratorpro (March 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974183105
• ISBN-13: 978-0974183107
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #234,825 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars poorly edited, poor pictures, and "cheap feel", April 28, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Integrating the Smart Home & its Owner, books 1 and 2 (Paperback)

My wife and I are planning on installing some home automation features in our 4 year old home (whole house audio, security cameras, LAN, etc.), so I thought this book might be helpful. While it did have some interesting information, it was a very simple book. The font was very large so that a "short book" with limited information could be made to look bigger. There were several typos in the book and there weren't even page numbers! I finished the book in about 2 hours. There were lots of black and white photos, but their quality was so poor that I had a hard time discerning the details the author was attempting to point out. Also because the photos were of low resolution and B&W, you have no reference when the author says things like, "the blue wire in the photo." Save your money on this one unless you need some scripts for the JDS Stargate system (which you can get online free in the forums anyway.)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars makes a complicated subject easy, September 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Integrating the Smart Home & its Owner, books 1 and 2 (Paperback)

A lot of these books only cover X10. This one took a good look at a lot of home automation products and brought them all together in a really easy to understand way. The illustrations of the installation made things even easier to understand.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An easy and helpful read, June 1, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Integrating the Smart Home & its Owner, books 1 and 2 (Paperback)

I was looking for a way of getting some things done at my home without spending a ton of cash, & this book helped me exceed my goals. If you're looking to spend 20 grand, you probably want to go another route (like hire someone), but I wanted to do stuff myself. True the pics are black & white, but I didn't find it a problem. Book starts with basic info in case you don't know much, and follows a complete install that controls A/V, Heating & A/C, security, cameras & webcams, computer networking & other. Uses the JDS Stargate. By the way, I personally enjoyed the writing style. A bit of humor doesn't hurt in a technical book.